Employees from Pernod Ricard and LVMH Champagne houses in Reims, France, went on strike yesterday (13 May) in a spat over wages and job uncertainty.
Over 100 employees from the Mumm and Perrier-Jouët vineyards were on the picket line, according to the Champagne branch of the CGT union, demonstrating in front of the gates of the Mumm cellars on rue du Champ de Mars.
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The Force Ouvrière and Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (CFDT) unions are also representing workers, CGT Champagne said in a statement.
Staff from LVMH’s Veuve Clicquot house also took part in a separate demonstration on Tuesday at the group’s Comète site, according to the CGT, in a dispute against the 1,200 jobs expected to be cut by LVMH across its wine-and-spirits division.
Workers were also said to be meeting at the Moët & Chandon site in Épernay on the same day, to discuss how to approach the issue.
Both LVMH and Pernod Ricard declined to comment on the matter when approached by Just Drinks.
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By GlobalDataAround 60 employees from Mumm participated in yesterday’s strike, Stéphane Levasseur, secretary of the economic and social committee at Mumm, told this publication.
The reasons driving the stoppage were a failure to increase salaries in annual negotiations (also known as NAO), and the “potential sale of Mumm by Pernod Ricard to another buyer”, Levasseur said.
He added: “There will certainly be other strike movements in the coming weeks and these will be amplified if the sale of Mumm champagne is confirmed.”
Levasseur also noted the “social climate is very degraded at Mumm and in the Pernod Ricard group”. When asked whether negotiations were planned, he said the parent company “does not currently wish to communicate with us on the subject”.
In a statement, Sébastien KRS, an employee of the Mumm Perrier-Jouët vineyard and staff representative said: “First, the threat of selling our house relayed by the press. Then, a paltry 1.1% increase imposed by the Champagne branch, even below inflation. And finally, the absence of a value-sharing bonus last year, despite the billions raked in by the group. All this while we were asked to cope in the vineyards as well as in production, without additional staff.”
In February, it was revealed that Pernod Ricard was examining a possible disposal of Mumm.
A source familiar with the matter said at the time the deliberations centred only on the Mumm brand and did not include the company’s other Champagne label Perrier-Jouët.
Johann Maarouf, from the CFDT Champagne union branch, added: “The strategy is clear: do more with less, and when there is nothing left to scrape, we must trim the fat from the mammoth and make employees the only adjustment variable. The only response is collective mobilisation. We must strengthen union unity and prepare a show of force that meets the challenges.”
