The SNCF inter-union is increasing pressure against the announced dismantling of Fret SNCF, the French public leader in rail freight transport, and the opening of regional lines to competition. After having launched a strike call from Wednesday, November 20, 7 p.m. to Friday, November 22, 8 a.m., the CGT-Cheminots, Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots announced, in a joint press release that Saturday, the addition of a new indefinite and renewable strike notice per 24-hour period, this time starting Wednesday, December 11 at 7 p.m.
Organizations deplore the lack “inflection” of the group management and “reaffirm that the establishment of a moratorium is possible and necessary to allow the various players to get back around the table, and find ways to guarantee not only the continuity of Fret SNCF, but also its development on the most long term”.
While the Minister of Transport François Durovray confirmed the discontinuity plan undertaken by his predecessor, Clément Beaune, in May 2023, condemning Fret SNCF to lose a good number of its most profitable lines and to be dismantled into two new companies at the start of 2025 , the unions are calling for a moratorium that is all the more “essential given the suffering of our Freight colleagues”.
“Split of SNCF Réseau”
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 fingers “privatization in TER, Transilien and Intercités activities” as well as “the breakup of SNCF Réseau” under the effect of 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 railway 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”.
