Troubled day on the trains this Friday due to a strike by railway workers starting from Perpignan

There were several dozen of them gathered this Friday, November 8 at the end of the morning, occupying the loading dock of the Train des primeurs at Saint-Charles in Perpignan. Yet another strike movement had been launched by the CGT Cheminots of Perpignan and the former Languedoc-Roussillon in order to protest once again against the slow death of the Train des primeurs.

A movement widely followed since 82% of TER drivers, according to the CGT, as well as one in two controllers, in both TER and TGV, would have walked off the job this Friday. The notice lasted 24 hours since Thursday evening and caused numerous delays and cancellations of trains throughout the eastern part of Occitanie. These inconveniences are all the more noticeable as they are coupled, at the start of the long weekend of November 11, with a suspension of TGV connections between Perpignan, Narbonne, Béziers, Montpellier and Paris. Result of large-scale modernization work which must paralyze traffic, or at least slow it down significantly, between November 8 from 11 p.m. and November 13 at 5 a.m.

On the union side, this day of demands was only a trial run before the largest mobilization planned for November 21. Mickael Meusnier, CGT Cheminots secretary of Perpignan, already welcomes the success of this Friday, to which “7 or 8 railway workers from Cerbère“joined by rallying Saint-Charles in the morning. He reminds us that we will have to be united in the next meetings in order to counter”the different reorganizations“which impact their working conditions. He also wants to fight”against wage freezes and for job creation“. “We have no choiceinsists the Catalan union leader, we must all react together to the situation of Fret SNCF, the opening to competition of certain regions such as PACA or even the outsourcing of certain services.“So many issues which will underpin the strike of November 21, at the national level this time.