management and two unions reach an agreement for 2025 – Libération

An agreement on average salary increases of 2.2% at SNCF in 2025 has been validated after the signature of two unions, the management of the railway company announced this Friday, November 29. It had proposed such an increase on November 20, but had conditioned the application of certain measures on the signing of the text by at least two of the four representative organizations. It is now done, because the UNSA railway and the CFDT-Cheminots have initialed it. This file of compulsory annual negotiations (NAO) is a priori distinct from that of the dismantling of Fret SNCF and the terms of opening to competition, two bones of contention with management which led all the company's unions to call railway workers to go on strike from December 11.

The average increase provided for by the agreement at SNCF will be 0.7 percentage points above inflation, forecast at 1.5% according to the Banque de France. “This is the fourth consecutive year that salary increases […] protect the purchasing power of railway workers by being higher than inflation”argued the management of the SNCF. “This NAO agreement is made possible by the good results of the SNCF group, which have been positive for six consecutive semesters. It will have no impact on taxpayers and travelers.she added. These increases include seniority-related advancements and individual increases of 1.7%, while the overall salary increase will be 0.5%. The working bonus for railway workers will also be increased by 15 euros per month.

“Not up to par”, according to SUD-Rail

The agreement was subject to signature until Friday. SUD-Rail, the third union, judged it “not up to par”. The text was also not initialed by the CGT-Cheminots, the company's first union organization. For its part, the UNSA-Ferroviaire (22.1% of the votes in the last professional elections) defended its signature by estimating in a leaflet that its position allowed “to avoid a scenario of total salary freeze” and of “guarantee the implementation of all negotiated measures”. Between them, the Unsa-Ferroviaire and the CFDT-Cheminots, rather reformist, are not in the majority, the latter union having collected 15.94% of the votes in the last elections at the SNCF.

“We ended this period of high inflation which manifested itself in a 17% increase in wages against inflation which stood at 13%” between 2022 and 2024, management recalled on November 20. These significant salary increases, after years of freezing, have made it possible to raise the group's lowest salaries which are now at the level of the minimum wage plus 10% minimum, or 1,580 euros net. SNCF management has decided to no longer hold these salary negotiations in November. From next year, they will take place at the end of the first quarter, just after the publication of the company's annual results.