Several dozen employees of the chain of sporting goods stores Decathlon mobilized on Saturday at the call of the CFDT in front of several stores in France to demand better wages.
At the end of the day, management counted 98 strikers in 27 stores. The CFDT has counted nearly 500 people mobilized through 100 stores.
A towing operation to customers took place in front of the Herblay store in the Paris region, as well as a walkout in the early afternoon, CFDT union representative Sébastien Chauvin told AFP.
Stores in Aubagne, Mérignac, Metz, Rennes and Lille were also affected, according to him. The day of mobilization was not chosen at random, since it is the first Saturday of the winter sales, a day of great attendance.
“It is rather well perceived by the customers”, assures the union delegate.
The CFDT calls for a fairer distribution of the company’s financial performance between shareholders and employees. It advances the figure of 400 million euros in dividends paid for the past year.
“We are asking for the systematic repercussion (of increases) of the SMIC” as well as “3% gain in purchasing power” additional, underlines Mr. Chauvin.
A call for a strike was launched by the union on Thursday, following a mandatory annual negotiation phase (NAO) held in December.
The CFDT is not the majority within the sporting goods production and distribution group belonging to the Mulliez galaxy, such as Auchan, Boulanger or Leroy Merlin.
A meeting with the management is scheduled for January 24, specifies Mr. Chauvin.
The group has “significantly increased the salaries of its employees” since January 2022, advanced Decathlon in a statement received by AFP on Friday, “from 9% to 9.8% for college employees and supervisors”.
These figures mainly reflect the low level of wages in the company, replies Mr. Chauvin, believing that the increase granted by the group brings them closer to the automatic revaluations of the minimum wage last year, due to high inflation.
The group, created in 1976 in Englos (Nord), claims on its website nearly 94,000 employees. Decathlon has already experienced a strike episode in October 2021, a first according to the unions at the time.