The SNCF unions have announced an indefinite strike from Wednesday December 11. They are calling for a moratorium against the dismantling of Fret SNCF and protesting against the opening of regional lines to competition.
Will there be trains at Christmas? The SNCF unions raised their voice this Saturday, November 9 and called for an indefinite strike from Wednesday, December 11, to demand a moratorium against the dismantling of Fret SNCF and to protest against the terms of opening the lines to competition regional.
Towards a long movement in December?
In a joint press release, the CGT-Cheminots, Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots explain that given the lack of “inflection” from the group's management, the strike will be unlimited and renewable for periods of 24 hours starting Wednesday, December 11 at 7 p.m.
The unions also reiterate their call for a strike from Wednesday, November 20, 7 p.m. to Friday, November 22, 8 a.m., with November 21 described as an “ultimatum day.”
This is not the first time that social movements within the SNCF have potentially affected school holidays. In February, controllers went on strike during a holiday weekend, leaving 150,000 people in the lurch. For Christmas in 2022, hundreds of TGVs were canceled, again due to a strike.
Moratorium requested on the future of Fret SNCF
The unions are opposed to the announced dismantling of Fret SNCF, the leading rail freight company in France, which will disappear on January 1 to be reborn in the form of two separate companies: Hexafret for freight transport, and Technis for locomotive maintenance. , regret the union federations.
This is the second stage of the discontinuity plan negotiated by the French State with the European Commission, to avoid a recovery procedure which could have led to the pure and simple liquidation of the company, which employs 5,000 employees.
However, in their press release, the trade union organizations “reaffirm that the establishment of a moratorium is possible and necessary to allow the various actors to get back around the table, and find ways to guarantee not only the continuity of Freight SNCF, but also its development in the longer term.
“For the sake of the European Commission, we are destroying Fret SNCF,” Fabien Villedieu, delegate of the Sud Rail union, reacted this Saturday on BFMTV.
“Of suffering”
“We received a total rejection from the management of the company during the first meeting we had at the beginning of the week,” assures Julien Troccaz, the Sud-Rail federal secretary, contacted by the AFP.
“We have colleagues who have worked all their lives, for 20, 25 years, for the public company Fret SNCF, and on January 1, everything stops. Today, our colleagues do not know how this will happen on January 1. They know that they are going to be in private companies, but they do not know their social rights, so obviously there is suffering,” continues the trade unionist.
“We are privatizing the SNCF in the middle of the climate crisis”
The unions denounce more broadly in their press release a “trajectory of fragmentation and Balkanization of the network”. For several weeks, they have been pointing the finger at “the privatization of TER, Transilien and Intercités activities” as well as “the breakup of SNCF Réseau” as a result of the opening to competition.
“We are currently in the process of privatizing the SNCF: at low intensity, discreetly, in small steps, we go first through the subsidiaries, we go to private companies, it is not all in one go like England in 1994, it is happening gradually, but we are in the process of privatizing the SNCF We are privatizing the SNCF in the middle of the climate crisis, it's really the good idea of the moment”, added the union representative of Sud Rail Fabien Villedieu on. BFMTV.
In mid-December, the first SNCF Voyageurs railway workers will be transferred to SNCF subsidiaries, created to respond to TER calls for tenders launched by the regions which have decided to open their rail network to competition.
“When the management of the company responds to calls for tenders, it will be via private companies, which allows the bosses to start from scratch on the social rights of employees: there is a re-negotiation of the entire framework social that the SNCF has known for years”, affirms Julien Troccaz.
SNCF management does not comment
Contacted by AFP, SNCF management declined any comment.
This Friday on TF1, the Minister of Transport François Durovray had nevertheless invited the management of the SNCF “to dialogue, as in any large company when there are difficulties”.
“I am the Minister of Transport, I am not the boss of the SNCF, it is up to the boss of the SNCF and his teams to discuss with his employees,” he insisted.
The inter-union, however, directly calls on the minister about his plan “car express” for daily travel, a plan frowned upon by employees of the public company.
“Why oppose the train that I want to develop with the express coaches which absolutely do not have the same purpose. It is to offer public transport to those who do not have it,” reacted François Durovray.
