Center Pompidou: three months of strike and still no negotiated solution in sight

The meeting has been demanded by the unions since December 21 as well as “a real negotiating timetable”. But the management of the Center Pompidou indicated this Tuesday that they had “nothing new” to communicate at this stage. “We hope that the new minister, who says she wants to fight for culture, will listen to staff and become fully aware of the crisis situation that Rima Abdul Malak has left unresolved,” Nathalie Ramos also told AFP. general secretary of the National Union of Museums and Estates CGT-culture.

Questioned at the RTL grand jury on Sunday, Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT, also called on Rachida Dati, named rue de Valois, to urgently take up the Pompidou file where she must, according to her, make “her first trip” , believing that the new Minister of Culture is “expected around the corner”.

Monday, the last day of a major exhibition on Picasso, the striking employees, supported by their counterparts from other museums and cultural sectors (Cluny, Picasso, Orsay, BnF, Arc de Triomphe, INRAP...) distributed leaflets to raise public awareness, according to Ms. Ramos. The staff of the establishment, also called Beaubourg and which houses one of the most important modern and contemporary art museums in the world as well as a library very popular with students, fear for their future.

They are asking for guarantees on the maintenance of the employment ceiling and the non-outsourcing of their missions during the closure of the place, inaugurated almost half a century ago and which must remain closed until 2030 for important asbestos removal and restoration work. They are also worried about the “dispersal of the collections”, particularly abroad, during the closure of the museum. Some of them went on strike on October 16, causing around twenty days of closure of the Center Pompidou, whose doors were closed daily during the Christmas school holidays.

The agents massively voted back the strike during the last general assembly on Thursday. The inter-union (CGT, CFDT, FO, Unsa, SUD) extended the strike notice at the beginning of January until February 15.