After three months of strike, workers at Paris’ Pompidou Center are celebrating a major victory. Yesterday, it was announced that the museum had finally reached an agreement with two trade unions: CFDT and Force Ouvrière (FO). France’s new culture minister, Rashida Dati, played a decisive role in ending the conflict.
The strike began in October in anticipation of the Museum of Contemporary Art closing next year for a major five-year renovation. With the museum not expected to reopen until 2030, around 1,000 staff in administrative, collection management and security roles feared their jobs would be at risk.
The union sent a letter to France’s Culture Ministry in November, criticizing a lack of transparency about what workers can expect after the Pompidou begins its phased closure this fall. Officials were also angered to see director Laurent Lebon jet-setting to cultural institutions around the world to promote the museum’s collection and organize lucrative loan deals to help fund its reopening.
Yesterday, January 29, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Levon and representatives of CFDT and FO. The museum and the department promised to guarantee employment for employees during the planned closure period, but retained the right to reassign employees to other positions at the same skill level. Part of the museum’s operations will be temporarily relocated, with the library moving to the Lumière and a collaboration that could see the exhibition program moved to the Grand Palais.
The other three trade unions involved in the strike, CGT, Sud and Unsa, were not present at the negotiations and are currently not members of the monitoring committee, which meets three times a year to ensure that promises are kept. do not have.
“As soon as I arrived at the Ministry of Culture, I wanted to end this stalemate,” Dati wrote. X. “A 100-day strike is unprecedented in the history of the Center Pompidou. I would like to thank the staff and management for their commitment.”
Dati’s involvement has been praised by union members, including CFDT cultural secretary Alexis Fritsche, who said his involvement was “a decisive factor in the success of the negotiations”, according to the paper. Le Monde.
This could be a strategic coup for the new minister, who was appointed on January 11 as part of a major cabinet reshuffle. Elsewhere in French media, it has been reported that she is already under intense scrutiny for not declaring her visit to the authoritarian country of Azerbaijan. to have a close relationship with
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