The strike launched on Sunday 15 September by employees of Electricité de France (EDF) in Guadeloupe has paralysed part of the island’s electricity production. On Tuesday evening, 46,000 households were left without electricity. “The electrical system is suffering from a production deficit, in particular due to the unavailability of eight motors at the Pointe Jarry power plant”EDF Guadalupe said in a press release.
For two days now, a strike has been taking place between the employees of EDF Production Electrique Insulaire (PEI), which produces nearly 70% of Guadeloupe’s electricity through a diesel power plant, and its management. In question, “persistent situations that do not comply with the end-of-conflict protocol” signed in February 2023, after a 61-day strike, recalled the union delegate of the Energy Federation of the General Confederation of Labor of Guadeloupe (FE-CGTG), Nathanael Verin, in the strike notice sent in August.
Negotiations are currently underway under the direction of the labour department. According to La 1ere, the issue at issue is, among other things, compliance with the provisions on working hours, wage regulation, payment of mileage allowances and the free division of annual leave in hours.
“To avoid a widespread incident, a load shedding rotation is being carried out in two-hour increments”EDF announced that it is asking “limit your consumption”specifying call to “all available sources of production”.
Guadeloupe, a non-interconnected area, produces its electricity from several sources: diesel thermal power station (68.6% of production), but also renewable energies (biomass, geothermal, wind, photovoltaic, hydraulic, etc.), although production is not sufficient to balance the supply and demand of electricity in the archipelago.
