EDF teams are hard at work. “The situation is gradually being restored,” Friday, October 25 in the evening, in Guadeloupe , several hours after a general power outage across the entire territory, the prefecture said in a press release.
“Nevertheless, the situation remains fragile and a return to normal should take several hours, during the night and until tomorrow,” added the prefecture, which decided to maintain the curfew in force until 6 a.m. Saturday (10 a.m. GMT) “in order to guarantee security and tranquility.”
A few hours earlier, Prefect Xavier Lefort had accused “striking employees” of having entered the control room of the Pointe Jarry power plant at 8:30 a.m. and of having “caused the emergency shutdown of all the engines.”
The Jarry power station supplies almost all of the electricity in the area of nearly 380,000 inhabitants.
The president of the department of Guadeloupe, Guy Losbar, said in a press release issued on Friday evening that he was “particularly outraged by the serious consequences of the general blackout (…) following the sabotage carried out in the control room of the EDF-PEI thermal power station in Jarry.
“No wage claim, however legitimate, can justify such actions with catastrophic consequences for Guadeloupean households, for our elders, for our health system and for the life of our businesses,” wrote Guy Losbar, who “calls on the responsibility and common sense of the parties involved in this conflict.”
The police had to intervene at 9 a.m. (1 p.m. GMT) “in order to secure the EDF power station following the actions committed by some of its employees,” the prefecture also recalled.
Social conflict
The outage was caused by the shutdown of the 12 engines at the Jarry power station, which supplies almost all of the electricity in the region.
This shutdown of the engines comes in the context of a social conflict between the energy branch of the CGT and the management of EDF Production électrique insulaire (PEI).
The conflict, which has been going on since September 15, concerns the application of a memorandum of understanding, signed at the end of a first strike in 2023. At the time, the conflict, which lasted more than two months, concerned in particular the establishment of temporary workers, but also the catching up of five years of salary arrears.
Last Monday, the management of EDF PEI had proposed the signing of an agreement, which the energy federation of the CGT Guadeloupe had refused, a final sticking point concerning the method of calculating paid leave.
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