What mobilization?
At the SNCF as in the airline sector, it was inter-union organizations that called for mobilization.
Air transport personnel are therefore called to stop work and demonstrate on Thursday in front of the National Assembly, to protest against the government plan to increase taxation in their sector. Five organizations, including the powerful National Union of Airline Pilots (SNPL) and the SNPNC-FO, the first union for cabin crew (hostesses and stewards) have launched this slogan.
Same unity at the SNCF, where the CGT-Cheminots, Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots are calling not only for a strike from Wednesday, November 20, 7 p.m. to Friday, November 22, 8 a.m., but also for a strike renewable from Wednesday December 11.
Why these strikes?
On the SNCF side, it was the announcement of a dismantling of the freight branch of the national rail carrier which caused the discontent of railway workers to explode. Fret SNCF will disappear on January 1 to be reborn in the form of two separate companies: Hexafret for freight transport, and Technis for locomotive maintenance.
The French State is thus reacting to a requirement from the European Commission, guardian of fair competition, to avoid a recovery procedure which could have led to the pure and simple liquidation of the company, which employs 5,000 employees. The union organizations are calling for a moratorium on this dismantling, but have also raised demands linked to the opening of regional lines to competition, yet another consequence of the unpopular railway reform of 2018 which notably ratified the disappearance of the status of railway worker.
In the air sector, unity is total since all of its stakeholders, from employee unions to the main employers' organization, the National Federation of Aviation and its Trades (Fnam), and up to IATA , which brings together the vast majority of airlines in the world, denounced the aims of the French government.
The latter, in search of funds to limit the budget deficit, wants to increase the taxation of air transport from France by a billion euros per year, via the tripling of the solidarity tax on plane tickets ( TSBA) and a higher contribution from business aviation passengers. Consequence feared by the sector, a further loss of competitiveness of aircraft based in France and reduced growth.
Air France-KLM estimated that it would thus see its operating profit cut by up to 170 million euros in 2025 – which represents 10% of the profit made in 2023 – all funds which cannot be invested in new aircraft or in the airline group's decarbonization efforts.
What will happen to travelers?
The SNCF unions have demonstrated their capacity for mobilization during previous movements. Last 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.
And between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, the carrier experienced the longest strike since its creation in 1938, against the universal points-based pension system.
On the air side, the companies wanted to be reassuring for Thursday, without yet benefiting from total visibility on the number of strikers. “We should be able to transport all customers” who plan to travel, declared Tuesday morning the deputy general director and general secretary of Air France-KLM, Alexandre Boissy, referring to a “limited” impact. Corsair, Air Caraibes and French Bee, but also easyJet and Air Austral, are not planning any flight cancellations.
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