Suez’s previous European health and safety agreement dates back to 2014. Since then, the group has shrunk from 80,000 employees to 40,000 following the sale of a large part of its activities to competitor Veolia. What remains of the group corresponds to a new perimeter, resulting from divestments due to antitrust regulations, and the 2014 text has not been retained. “We wanted to come up with more concrete actions and commitments than were in place under the 2014 agreement,” explains Soizic Machado-Verheye, the group’s health, safety and environment (HSE), and industrial risks director. “Over the 10 months of negotiations, we have built up a relationship of trust and succeeded in weaving a high quality of labour relations.” The text was signed by the European federations IndustriAll and EPSU, all the representative French trade unions and the representatives of the special negotiating group from Spain, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and the United Kingdom.
