SNCF: unions call for an indefinite strike from December 11 to protest against the dismantling of Freight

The pressure on the Christmas holidays is already starting. This Saturday, November 9, all SNCF unions called for an indefinite strike from Wednesday, December 11 to demand a moratorium against the announced dismantling of Fret SNCF.

In a joint press release sent to AFP, the CGT-Cheminots, Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots explain that faced with the lack of “inflection” from the group's management, the strike will be unlimited and renewable for 24-hour periods starting Wednesday, December 11 at 7:00 p.m. The unions also reiterate their call for a strike from Wednesday, November 20, 7:00 p.m. to Friday, November 22, 8:00 a.m.

“This moratorium is essential”

Concerning the dismantling of Fret SNCF, the union federations “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 SNCF Freight, but also its development in the longer term. “This moratorium is essential given the suffering of our Freight colleagues,” argue the unions.

Fret SNCF, the leading rail freight company in France, will disappear on January 1 to be reborn in the form of two separate companies called Hexafret for freight transport and Technis for locomotive maintenance. 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.

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. For the unions, this is a “strategy of internal social dumping assumed by the group, with the consequence of an atomization of social rules in the multiple rail SMEs that management intends to create for each lot open to competition”.