Why has the municipality of Valenciennes decided to end the home help and nursing services provided by the CCAS by September 2022? While this decision considered as “brutal”Caused a lot of turmoil – among employees, unions but also within oppositions – Mayor Laurent Degallaix seized the opportunity of the municipal council which was held this Tuesday, October 19 (and an oral question asked by the opponent Kostia Huant) to speak on the subject. And thus justify a decision – he said – “not easy to take“, most “consistent“.
“Treason”, “policy of fait accompli”…
For the 49 territorial agents excluding administrative staff (27 incumbents and 22 contractors) assigned to these home help services and nursing care, the news fell on September 24. A little to everyone’s surprise. The beneficiaries of these services are obviously also concerned: there are around 200, or the equivalent of 110 families. Very quickly, this decision triggered the anger of the unions. The union Territorial Autonomous Federation and the CFTC had also signed a joint statement denouncing “a betrayal“. While among politicians, opposition municipal councilor Nathalie Lorette was the first to draw. So on Saturday October 9, the elected Communist denounced “the policy of a fait accompli“. “The stopping of these essential public services has not been debated or voted on either by the municipal council or the board of directors of the CCAS (…) It is a real redundancy plan which concerns more than fifty agents who learned this news without anything to suggest (…) With an aging population, we need the public service more than ever to allow the home support of our seniors which costs much less expensive than the establishments (…) The mayor likes to say that he has no lesson to receive in social matters, but this decision comes after a reduction of 582 000 € of the budget of the CCAS!“.
“We were in pain on all fronts”
“We were no longer able to offer quality service“, Explains Laurent Degallaix to justify these deletions. “We were suffering on all fronts: in the recruitment of staff, in the staff itself, and in the services provided to beneficiaries.“. In his argument, the mayor of Valenciennes mentioned the difficulties that the services of the town hall would have to keep the contractors. Thus, the instability of the workforce would lead to dysfunctions. “The contract workers come to us to gain experience. And then very quickly, they leave for the private sector or in the hospital environment because our “public service” grid does not allow us to pay them more (…) Knowing that the health SEGUR now allows a higher remuneration of 30 or even by 40%“. The mayor of Valenciennes also indicates that there was “a drop in activities among the incumbents” (with 8 long sick leaves). And “If in the past, we could compensate with contractual“, It would not be“no longer the case today“.
Secondly, Laurent Degallaix points to an operation that no longer corresponds to the wishes of the beneficiaries. “40% of our beneficiaries also use private services (…) Today, we find ourselves with beneficiaries who have much more serious pathologies. But for all that, people who have difficulty moving have not lost their intellectual faculties. They want to still have a more or less normal life, except for us, when we come in, it’s 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., and it is difficult to put seniors to bed at that time. They want to live their life during the evening. So that 40% of them call on the private sector, which travels until 9 p.m. to put them to bed (…) We feel that a large part is shifting to the private sector because it also allows them to constantly have the same speaker. (…) When we look at the current situation, this makes our decision more coherent (…) We are now going to work on a senior policy which will be more coherent. In particular on adapted housing solutions, as well as on mobility issues“.
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