And remember, these workers are not just from Europe. We told you the anecdote of the subcontractors working for the owner of Chalouette who came from New Delhi,
Furthermore, I regret to confirm that it is not Mme Marine Le Pen who will get us out of Europe... (further information).
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They come to toil on construction sites, in transport or slaughterhouses, for 3 to 6 € per hour, in defiance of all safety rules. And the most legally in the world. Because these "low cost" workers are all European.
Augusto de Azevedo Monteiro wanted to make a living. He lost her. Mason seconded to France by EYP, a Portuguese box, this worker machined in the very fashionable area of low-cost subcontracting in the slush of a Spie Batignolles site, in Villeneuve-la-Garenne. On December 6, he died crushed by a slab that a hasty formwork by dint of infernal cadences was unable to contain.
Child of Esposende, neighboring city of Braga irrigated by the crisis and its miserable tributaries, Augusto de Azevedo Monteiro was 35 years old, a family and no more a rusty euro in his pocket. The gross €565 of his last Smic soared, his unemployment benefits dried up, he had opted for a mission in France. “Our country is dying and we are creating cheap labour,” confides a French-speaking employee of EYP. We know that Spie calls on us because we cost less than our French competitors. »
Romanian, Polish, Spanish or Portuguese, the license plates of company vans or temporary work agencies lined up in the Villeneuve-la-Garenne car park tell the geography of the crisis. According to Spie's communicator, however, “EYP was preferred to two French candidates for reasons of availability, nothing else! » The Portuguese speak more clearly: “We have almost no more local customers and, when this is the case, they do not honor their invoices, slice the EYP employee. Spie at least pays for our services: the distress of some is good business for others, that's how it is..."
The (a)morality of this story, the French builders have understood it well: unable to relocate their sites, they import large shovelfuls of workers certified low cost by subcontracting companies or temporary agencies established in territories where the cost of labor is measured in loquats. It is "clever", it's legal, it's European.
From 10 in 000, the turbine pilgrims are, according to the Ministry of Labour, 2000 today. "They allow user companies to save up to 25%", notes a labor inspector. Juicy, yes, but not enough. In February 2011, a parliamentary report sheds light on the hidden side of the phenomenon and brings the number of seconded workers to 435: many homeless people, a third of whom struggle in the construction industry, escape the statistics by dint of shenanigans.
“The French looked like Playmobil, they were so protected. »
In June 2011, following a series of undeclared work accidents, Bouygues had to divorce Atlanco: this temporary work company conveniently located in Cyprus had sent armfuls of Poles without social security cover to the construction site of the Flamanville EPR, in the Manche department.
In the wake of this nuclear hiccup, the Cherbourg prosecutor's office opened four investigations. Not less ! Because, if the nomads of the trowel are detached, it is first of all from their rights. “The texts provide that they benefit from the hard core of our legislation, minimum wage and working hours in mind. But that is rarely the case.", ton Laurent Dias, responsible for the CGT construction in Auvergne.
“Most of the time, foreign employers present duly completed declarations of secondment, continues Renaud Dorchies, in charge of the fight against illegal work at the Urssaf in Lower Normandy. But, between the wages mentioned and the sums actually paid, there is a world: many workers retrocede part of their obol on returning home, see themselves inflicting deductions for accommodation or food theoretically taken care of. .. They never complain about it: in this vitiated universe, it's bad luck to the one who opens it. Today, we have Bulgarians jostling for 300 € a month...”
The Urssaf sleuth recently pinned down a Romanian family, a supplier of arms for a national company: “Father and son had created a mailbox company in Romania. Contrary to the rules in force, she was devoid of any activity on her land and poured into us trimmers paid barely more than the Romanian minimum wage [€180]. It's a classic trick. » Also classic, the stacking of service providers in a mille-feuille style. “On large sites, adds the investigator, we can identify eight or nine ranks of subcontractors: the employees no longer know to whom they belong! »
Beyond the limits, are there more limits? “It is urgent to dismantle the illegal arrangements which distort the rules of competition, advances the cabinet of Michel Sapin, occupied with a revision of the directive of 1996. We also plead to reinforce the civil and criminal responsibility of the principals. » The French politicians are barking... Their English and Polish colleagues and other ayatollahs of flexibility are crying out for the rear guard. Announced at the end of February, the revision of the directive has been postponed to calendars which could be Greek.
Too bad for social dumping when, in 2012, bankruptcy filings in the construction industry jumped by 6%; too bad for the 40 jobs threatened by the end of 000. "So much the better for the slave market!" » laughs the cégétiste Laurent Dias. Sherlock of the concrete blocks, this son of Portuguese political refugees strives to flush out the eels under scaffolding and thunders that “the “bolkensteinisation” of the masses carried around from one EU country to another for peanuts is recorded”.
And to brandish the service sheet of a Polish plasterer: translated by an interpreter, it indicates €628,80 for 169 hours. The secondment contract drawn up a few months ago between MPP, a sizeable Portuguese temporary worker, and Alberto, is also worth a look: loaned to Sendin SA, a prosperous French shipbuilder, Alberto officiated on a major work by Bouygues, Boulogne. A collaboration crowned by 610 € monthly. Champagne! For the HRD of Sendin, "if there has been a breach, it is in good faith!" All my foreign temporary workers are declared to the minimum wage, but I do not have access to their pay slips, the law prevents me from doing so. If I could, I would check! Still, we wouldn't work for Eiffage or Vinci if we were barbarians! To listen to Joaquim, 48, the thing is discussed.
“The French looked like Playmobil, they were so protected. Me, I was working in suspension without any safety gear. » Fruit of his contortions: “600 € monthly. Paulo SA retained 80 for the mobile home where I slept, in a campsite. The last two months, I haven't touched anything. I was told that ASTP was in receivership. »
Let us specify for the good mouth that ASTP, expert in smoky detachments, is managed by the brother of the boss of Sendin SA. A wonderful family! “When I reported to the site manager of Eiffage that my money was blocked, continues Joachim, he sighed that it was painful. » Empathy commensurate with the group's positions: in September 2012, Michel Gostoli, president of Eiffage Construction, wrote to the CGT, mobilized on this affair: “The company cannot be held responsible for the non-payment of any loaned employee. [...] We are not in a position to require our subcontractors to provide us with information on the remuneration of their personnel. » Pontius Pilate couldn't have washed his hands any better.
Joaquim, however, is determined to bring his misfortune to the industrial tribunal with the support of the indestructible Laurent Dias. "I want my money back," he said. In Portugal, with my €5,50 an hour, I was doing better. Here I was not even 4 €. » Barely more than Hugo and his 3,17 €: enlisted with two comrades by a crooked compatriot, this already hunched thirty-year-old also wants to do battle. “We were not paid, the industrial tribunal of Draguignan must do us justice, he chants. Five hundred and fifty euros a month for 40 hours a week is a dog's price and we were refused! When one of us cut his tendon with a circular saw, he was thrown into the hospital like trash, no one was alerted. We don't deserve this..."
Behind this waltz of puppets, several puppeteers: a project manager, Var Habitat, who pleads ignorance. A subcontractor, La Valettoise, who swears to have “ceded to low cost to float at a time when all costs are being pulled down”. An interim box, Proposta Final, dissolved after being sanctioned for “non-payment of remuneration”... but whose Marianne reunited with the restless founder.
"Me, I don't care about all that," he yells. I set up another business in France with a subsidiary in Portugal: there, my five sisters find candidates through classified ads and bring them back to me. Just pick up! » And to brag: “At the moment, I have 10 guys in Toulon, 15 others in Grenoble. With me, a French boss saves €800 per head of worker. I make my butter and the Portuguese, he is happy. » This paragon of integrity christened his new enslaving machine Pioneiros em marched, either “Pioneers on the move”. For those who consider the European economic area as a new Wild West, it is not badly seen...
“We are constantly canvassed by email, fax or face to face by very down-to-earth salespeople, grumbles Patrick Liebus, from the Confederation of Crafts and Small Building Companies (Capeb). These beaters behave like mackerels! »
Variation on the same spiel in rows dOperari, domiciled in Warsaw: “Everything is marketable, it's globalization. If a French boss attacks the mass well and recruits me enough guys, I charge him the guy 13 € per hour, twice less than a French prolo. In addition, the Pole does not fuss while the Gaul – I know it, I am French – requires a bad weather bonus at the first downpour.
The always polish Budex, which displays its partnerships with Bouygues and Vinci, boasts the " courage " and " motivation " of his foals with the delicacy of a breeder flattering the asses of his cows at the Agricultural Show. In the south, in Portugal, the cattle fair is also in full swing. "Our workers know how to hurt themselves without rebelling", boasts a certain Laurentino. Founder of a " company " (sic), the man “Looks for bankrupt companies in the Portuguese press, flirts with future licensees and sends them to France. My teams toil up to 60 hours a week, beyond that, they get tired: on contracts, I reduce the hours actually worked, I artificially increase the hourly rate, and it passes! »
And warn that, “For lack of effective backfires, these practices will turn into an economic tragedy”. Voluble leader of the Capeb, Patrick Liebus agrees: “By systematically favoring the lowest bidder, the heavyweights of construction have introduced the worm of unfair competition into the fruit. Today, to win contracts, the official subcontractors of Eiffage, Bouygues and Vinci are forced into low cost, it's devastating. »
Member of the very liberal French Federation of Public Works until June 2012, would Jean-Yves Martin have turned his back? In a curious ideological reversal, he slays a "delusional system" : “Either we adapt to the hellish pace led by the majors themselves under pressure by the clients, or we sink. We are in the same madness as that which converts the horse into an ox. » Who is the horse, who is the ox? Jean-Yves Martin hesitates.
And for good reason: liquidated last summer, Centrelec, his company, in its time requested a Polish subcontractor... Did you say double talk? Quick to smash the “low cost frenzy”, Didier Ridoret nonetheless presides over the employers' Federation Française du Bâtiment (FFB), which drains the price-crushing mammoths: “I have 57 members, among whom there are certainly black sheep, but I am defending the future of the activity. The 000 directive, even applied to the letter, has become untenable. This biased competition is killing us. »
A self-proclaimed deontologist, Ridoret refuses to scold the bad pupils of the FFB, on the grounds that he "does not lead an order". "If I evicted those who are in difficulty with the tax authorities, hygiene or the rules of the loan of labor..." With opponents of this ilk, the detachment doesn't need supporters.
“In France, this device is perceived as shameful, but this Europe, the politicians wanted it. There will be no turning back: Brussels would see it as an abuse of protectionism”, analyzes Pierre Maksymowicz, creator of In Temporis, a specialist in intra-European mobility. From Lublin, where he honestly develops his business, he testifies that Maurice Taylor is rich... in supporters.
Like the boss of Titan, Pierre Maksymowicz conches the French workers “obsessed with their cigarette breaks and unable to compete with our Poles and Romanians in terms of output”. And drop: “All my French clients tell me that, at home, it's 'hello laziness'. This refusal of arduousness results in a huge shortage: our temporary workers only plug the gaps. With 8 additional unemployed identified each month in the construction industry, the shortage smacks of an alibi.
Boss of the Sesar group, 160 employees, Benoît Perret asked a Portuguese box to win a call for tenders from Eiffage. “Here, we really lack candidates in executive jobs and, when we find, there is a lack of involvement, he begins by justifying. I went to greet my Portuguese temporary workers and everyone thanked me for giving them work. With us, it is unthinkable. »
Could it be the ingratitude of his compatriots alone that converted him to the virtues of detachment? “Today, he admits, principals negotiate prices and deadlines right to the end: the loan of labor is the only response to their demands. It's tragic, but everyone gets involved. » Kader, 56, is sorry. Head of works for a giant in the sector, he compares the low-cost surge to “a virus that only benefits the bosses. The misery of these guys is being used to demoralize us and convince us that our workers' rights will be regressed. The worst thing is that we can't explain to these unfortunates that they are rushing us down: they are trained to suffer. Even more oppressed than us Arabs in the 60s”. In Europe, nothing is impossible.
In the absence of social harmonization in the European Union, the use of “posted workers” threatens entire sectors of the economy, warns a parliamentary report made public at the end of May. “Secondment” consists, for a boss, in sending his employees to temporarily perform their duties in another Member State of the Union. The manipulation? The social contributions applied remain those of the country of origin, these low-cost workers from Eastern or Southern Europe toil for 3 to 6 € per hour. Long live social dumping made in Europe!
This is, in millions, the number of posted workers, according to the European Commission. A large part of them is not declared.
source: Marianne.net
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Marine Lepen does NOT want to leave the EU... by Darwin_Kayser
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