Interview with a CSE member: Antoine
At the end of year, Back Makers in France elect a new CSE. What is today’s members’ opinions? We start with Antoine!
The Comité social et économique (CSE) officially represents Back Makers. It is elected every 4 years, and its composition and its mission are set by French law. To explain its role, we let our current representatives talk about it!
👋 Welcome! Could you introduce yourselves?
Antoine: Hi. My name is Antoine, I’m 42 year old. I’ve been at BM for 5 years and tinkering with computers for 35. It’s been my job for 20 years. I work remotely from Orléans. I’m attached to Paris, and my team to Barcelona.
I was elected to the CSE in 2022 and I’m in the “Health, Safety, Working Conditions” committee.
🤔 What matters the most for you in the CSE?
Antoine: Representing employees and defending their interests — even if the role is often consultative. The CSE is here to balance the relationship between management and Back Makers.
I think that in a company that champions ecological values, it’s also important to think about the place and role of humans.
😲 What is your strongest memory?
Antoine: The redundancy plan (PSE) in 2023: 13% of jobs were killed, 67 only in France. We had to be consulted, and we saw one of the harsher faces of the professional world. After that, the CSE lost most of its members: 26 Back Makers were elected in 2022, and we’re only 8 left today. That creates real organizational problems, but also issues of representation.
There has also been a step back on the Office Policy, and we can perhaps see a broader retreat from the weird, fun side of Back Market.
😎 Still, is there anything you’re proud of?
Antoine: I’m proud when I get colleagues’ concerns heard, when we achieve positive changes. An example: the lights in the staircase in Paris no longer switch off while people are there. There are a lot of things like that, and it usually takes a lot of lobbying to get anything…
Another example with the Office Policy: from the start the CSE had asked for red-weather alerts to be treated as Flexidays. At the time it was “too complicated”. We had to insist, and point out the same decision was made each time too late…
✊ Why did you join Solidaires Informatique?
Antoine: It’s better to get organized before it’s too late. The tech industry is young, but there’s no reason it should be immune to what we see elsewhere. The race for profitability comes at employees’ expense: doing more with less, offshoring, a race to the bottom on quality, worsening working conditions, and so on. In the past 4-5 years I’ve had the feeling the tide has turned: the party’s over.
Practically, if a union gets enough votes at the next CSE elections, and a new lay-off happens like in 2023, it will be possible to have a formal negotiation, instead of a mere CSE consultation. union,
🤔 If a Back Maker is thinking about joining a what do you tell them?
Antoine: Beyond the membership fee, it doesn’t commit you to anything. But it shows you support those who give their time to defend things you care about.
For me personally, it’s also about acknowl- edging that the major advances in workers' rights weren’t handed to us for free: they were won through collective action.
In the US: BM sued for union busting
Last January, a union recognition vote took place in the NYC office. Management campaigned against it, so actively they are accused to have broken the law. 😬
The company is indeed being sued for engaging in unfair labor practices. The case is ongoing, we await further developments. We stand with our comrades!
This should remind us worker representation is never a given: it must be won and defended ✊
Read our January interview with John and Kate about union recognition in the US.
What does the adoption of AI mean for us?
CGT Spain, Solidaires Info, and CGT France have issued a joint statement on AI at BM.
In March, the BackCon took place in Bordeaux. Unsurprisingly, talk about AI was the topic. Virtually all perspectives accepted two basic assumptions:
- AI is ”just” a tool we need to learn how to use and incorporate into our ways of working
- AI is already a fact in the industry, and Back Market cannot afford to miss this boat.
As workers belonging to unions, we cannot agree.
Technology is never neutral, and even less so in a corporate environment. Its development and adoption responds to very carefully crafted economical and political interests.
Our responsibility as unions is making sure that any change in our working conditions results in a positive impact for workers. We strongly believe that this is not happening in this case.
Meet us at the All Hands!
🐬 We’ll gather outside, like last year. Reach out if you’re interested!
We’ll share the time and location only to the people interested. If
you are, contact Cyril on Slack (@Сирил).
If you’re shy or would like to discuss personal matters, we can have a private conversation.
If you’re not coming, but would like to meet, you can still reach out!
General Education Strike in BCN
What do you do when your little kids have to stay home, and you have to come to the office?
When being organized just isn’t enough…
Imagine you’ve got your week all planned out, with office meetings, the days you’ll be in person, and a few Flexidays already used up. Now, imagine that you’re told at the last minute there will be no school or daycare the next day, and once a week for 5 weeks…
No minimum services during the strike?
Catalan schools are joining the national education strike with 5 days of strikes between May and June. Minimum services consist of 1 teacher for 3 classes including preschool. That means about 40 students per preschool teacher, which clearly wouldn’t be enough to ensure the children are cared for (naps, diapers, meals…).
And at Back Market?
The fact that we don’t have People Partners in Barcelona means the HR team is often out of touch with the day-to-day lives of the office workers: this was a good example.
BM had not responded at all to this strike, which would have been very different for an education strike of this magnitude in Paris. For past transportation strikes, the requirement to go to the office was was lifted there.
What we did
We gathered your complaints, and raised the issue on Workday. But that didn’t work. The CGT union section in Back Market Barcelona then met directly with Axelle, our Chief People Officer, to let HR know the local situation. The next day, all parents affected by the strike had an extra weekly Flexiday! CGT Back Market fully support the teachers and their fight for better working conditions and a better education system. This simple measure allows parents to organize themselves. And we are able to do our part by not overcharging schools in this time of struggle.
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