Unanimous agreement. SNCF management obtained the signature of the four representative unions – the CGT, the UNSA, SUD-Rail and the CFDT – on the conditions of transfer of the 4,500 employees of Fret SNCF, its subsidiary specializing in the transport of goods, towards two new entities, Hexafret and Technis, created in 1is January 2025. Two organizations – UNSA and CFDT – therefore withdrew from the call for a strike on December 12 (which begins on the evening of December 11). The CGT and SUD-Rail have maintained it, even if no one anymore expects a strong mobilization or a long strike.
The disappearance of Fret SNCF, and its replacement by two new companies stripped of part of the activity – left to competitors – is the solution found by the State and the group's management to avoid repaying 5.3 billion d euros of illegal state aid that the European Commission accused SNCF of having paid to its subsidiary. Such a reimbursement would have led to the outright liquidation of the company.
The conditions for the transfer of railway workers to these two new subsidiaries having still not been decided at the beginning of November, all the organizations, united as an inter-union, had threatened to strike from the evening of December 11 and on a renewable basis, endangering departures Christmas. Announced on November 9, this appeal was highly publicized during the long weekend of November 11.
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-The human resources department brought together employee representatives on November 27 to present them with a draft agreement. This assures former Fret SNCF railway workers that all their rights will be renewed in the new subsidiaries and guaranteed for thirty-six months. Which leaves them three years to negotiate a new work organization. They were then received by the CEO, Jean-Pierre Farandou, on Tuesday December 3. The latter has undertaken to set up a “joint monitoring committee” for the agreement, through which the parent company SNCF keeps an eye on the careers of railway workers who have left for the subsidiaries. “A train driver who leaves for Hexafret must not feel trapped there, but must be able to return to drive a TGV for example”explains an internal source.
Time to negotiate new agreements
Third stage, the management and the unions were received, Wednesday December 4, by the Minister for Transport, François Durovray, who had not yet resigned. The latter was reassuring about the budgetary support granted to rail freight and in particular to the so-called “isolated wagon” activity, the core business of the future Hexafret. This involves collecting wagons from different locations and grouping them together to form a train, in order to transport them to their destination. Without public support, this particular profession cannot be profitable. The minister also committed to negotiating with the new European Commissioner for Competition, Teresa Ribera, the possibility for Hexafret not to wait ten years before being able to relaunch a combined transport activity (which combines rail and road, by entrusting a whole train to a transport company which charters it). Jean-Pierre Farandou admitted that the transfer of railway workers to subsidiaries “is a shock”.
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