This episode, reported by our colleague France 3 Hauts-de-France, is a signal. On December 20, in the industrial zone of Amiens-Nord, around twenty employees of the construction company Appli went on strike. A few days before Christmas, this outburst of revolt is all the more significant as none of them had until then joined a union. It is not just a question of salaries, but a cry of distress in the face of increasingly degraded working conditions and a lack of recognition that goes beyond the company’s borders.
For several years, workers have been under increasing pressure. Although they were always there, the pace of work became unbearable. The projects follow one another at a frantic pace, with endless demands, but no consideration of the realities on the ground. Unforeseen events are never integrated into schedules, and the slightest break now seems a luxury. The intensification of the workload, without compensation or recognition, has created a climate of stress and exhaustion. This constant pressure, combined with management that was increasingly disconnected from reality, ended up making employees feel fed up.
Working conditions have deteriorated considerably. A construction site, basically a simple project, turned into a race against time. Days start early, sometimes at 6 a.m., and end after 8 p.m., with frequent travel to sites more than 100 km apart. And yet, these transport hours are not counted as working time. Worse, the financial compensation offered remains derisory, far from covering the accumulated physical and mental fatigue. The workers feel invisible, their efforts unrecognized and their work reduced to simple production mechanics.
But the demands go well beyond salary. What the strikers are asking for, above all, is respect in its entirety. They want to find a more human environment, where working hours are respected and where breaks are possible without the risk of being called to order. What shocks them, beyond the lack of financial recognition, is the total absence of consideration for their well-being. Bonuses never correspond to a real investment by the company. Promises of salary readjustment have often remained a dead letter…
This conflict highlights a systemic problem: the disconnect between managers and workers: on the one hand, employees, tired of the lack of recognition and the continuous intensification of demands; on the other, a management which defends the increase in salaries of 10% over three years and the establishment of a value sharing bonus. Human resources management seems more and more dehumanized, and working conditions are deteriorating to a worrying extent. The unease is deep, and the workers are now ready to fight for what seems to them to be their most basic right: to be treated with dignity.
At the end of the first negotiations, no concrete progress was obtained. The strike continues, with a new renewable movement planned for the month of January. This fight, which is taking place within the walls of the Appli company, embodies a much broader struggle. It is a fight against the dehumanization of an economic system which seems to have forgotten that workers are not simple tools of production. The dignity of workers is priceless, and they are ready to defend this right at all costs.
