Oil and gas giant TotalEnergies announced on Thursday that it plans to distribute “to all (its) employees worldwide” a bonus equivalent to one month’s salary, whereas it is paid in
France by a strike in its refineries.
This “exceptional bonus” will be paid in December “subject to salary agreements” in the countries and subsidiaries concerned and will be “capped for high salaries”, the group said.
All companies wholly owned by TotalEnergies and those in which TotalEnergies owns more than 50% of the share capital with the approval of the management may pay this bonus.
The announcement comes minutes after French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire called on RTL for the group to increase its wages to break the strike, saying it has “the capacity” to do so.
TotalEnergies also states in its release that it is willing “to consider a budget for 2023 salary increases based on 2022″ inflation and that it informed the labor organizations of this on Wednesday.
In France, employees at TotalEnergies’ Normandy, Donges, Feyzin and La Mède refineries and the Flanders depot renewed their strike on Thursday, the day after talks with management failed.
The CGT, which launched it on September 27, is demanding a 10% increase for 2022, compared with the 3.5% obtained at the beginning of the year, in order to compensate for inflation and to take advantage of the group’s exceptional profits.
In the first half of 2022, TotalEnergies earned some €10.6 billion in profits, thanks in particular to higher energy prices.
The group assures that “the conditions are not met to organize the negotiation between all the representative organizations” and demands before that that the blockings cease.
Strikes are also underway at Esso-ExxonMobil refineries, causing fuel shortages in the Île-de-France and Hauts-de-France regions.
At Esso-ExxonMobil, an agreement was reached with two majority unions including the CFDT, but not with the CGT and employees were requisitioned Wednesday at the depot of Gravenchon-Port-Jérôme (Seine-Maritime).
