Two employees of the Nice University Hospital, Sandrine Guglielmino, senior hospital technician, and Camille Guichard-Diot, nurse, tell their daily lives and explain why they are opposed to the pension reform. They have been on the streets many times since January and will be on Tuesday, for the 10th day of mobilization.
Since she was 20, Sandrine Guglielmino has never stopped working. Seven years in the private sector, 25 years in the public sector. At 52, she holds a position as a senior hospital technician at the University Hospital of Nice. She went to demonstrate several times against the pension reformwhich notably raises the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. “I don’t agree with being made to work for two more years,” she declares.
Sandrine Guglielmino explains: “At 64, I will have contributed 184 quarters, while 172 is enough, I want to participate in the collective effort, but we have to have a return. The return, we don’t have it at all. I am going to contribute for nothing, I will not have a premium. I will only be able to have it by working beyond the age of 64.” And this reform raises some questions for this CHU employee who considers “to have a good salary”. “I have a monthly technical bonus of 845 euros gross, but it is not included in the calculation of my retirement.”
Camille Guichard-Diot, 33, is another employee of the Nice University Hospital opposed to the pension reform. Faced with the influx of patients and the lack of staff, the geriatric liaison nurse was requisitioned. “I am mobilizing to prevent this reform from passing, to protect our rights, to retire with dignity and in good conditions and to prevent us from leaving worn out.”
You have to have the physique to take care of patients, get them up, go up them, wash them, walk all day. We got lives in our hands, we can’t afford to make mistakes
Camille Guichard-Diot, nurse at the University Hospital of Nice
In 11 years of activity, she has seen many colleagues leave before the legal age for disability. “Physical problems or severe depression, quotes the nurse. They have given everything and are on a pension of misery because they had to leave before.”
Difficulty is the main reason which explains why these two hospital service agents du CHU de Nice mobilise themselves. “We do days, we do nights, we do holidays, weekends, we come back to our rest, we are constantly short of staff… It requires a lot of investment, physically and mentally. you have to have the physique to take care of patients, get them up, reassemble them, wash them, walk all day. We have lives in our hands, we can’t afford to make mistakes”, testifies Camille Guichard-Diot.
If the movement goes up and it goes up, at some point, the president will no longer have a choice
Sandrine Guglielmino, senior hospital technician at the Nice University Hospital
Sandrine Guglielmino is of the same opinion. “In the hospital public service, they ask us more and more things, we have more and more work and pressure but less and less staff, that they have fallen at all levels, also among administrative and technical staff. I don’t have 50 arms!” But she relativizes: “The job is not painful like caregivers. I don’t even understand how we can let them work until that age.” It is especially for them that she fights.
Sandrine Guglielmino and Camille Guichard-Diot, who will mobilize on Tuesday at the call of the inter-union, are confident: according to them, the street can bend the government. “If the movement goes up and it goes up, at some point, the president will no longer have a choice”, declares the first. “We have to keep hope, I hope we will win”, concludes the second.
With Dominique Poulain
