In addition to January 31, the two unions will offer SNCF employees to mobilize on February 7 and 8, before “considering the renewable strike” a few days later.
Unions opposed to pension reform predicted it : the month of February and the winter holidays are likely to be greatly disrupted by social mobilization. This Tuesday, the CGT Cheminots, associated with Sud Rail, said it wanted to multiply the days of action in the coming weeks, in order to “to raise the balance of power to win the withdrawalof the project supported by the government.
The organizations will first mobilize on January 31, during the national interprofessional mobilization day to which all the trade union organizations have called. The strike must, that day, be massive in the railway sector, plead the CGT Cheminots and Sud Rail. Then, the same evening, the two federations will consult their base, to “debate the intensification of action“, if the government does not withdraw its project by then.
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Two additional mobilizations are then proposed, detail the unions, which will let their members decide. First, a “streak of two consecutive days of strikeon Tuesday February 7 and Wednesday February 8, just after the start of the winter holidays for part of the country. Dates which could however change, according to the news and the calendar drawn up by the power stations.
Then, another mobilization, which would take the form of a “strike renewable by periods of 24 hours“is envisaged at the SNCF, “from mid-February“. Again, the precise period is not defined, and will have to be validated by the activists. Still, this strike movement could well disrupt vacation departures from zones B and C of France, which start on February 11 and 18 respectively.
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Divisions on mobilization at the SNCF
These additional mobilizations, which go beyond the interprofessional inter-union, have however divided the representative organizations at the SNCF. In a text published on his social networks, the CGT Cheminots indicates that the calendar was discussed during an interfederal meeting on January 20. If its partners – Unsa railway, CFDT Cheminots and Sud Rail – all agreed to mobilize on January 31, the CGT wanted a first additional sequence of strike on Friday February 3 and Saturday February 4, a proposal swept away by the other three unions. Only Sud Rail accepted “the principleof another mobilization on February 7 and 8, declined by Unsa like the CFDT. Same observation on the renewable strike from mid-February, rejected by the two structures, when Sud Rail “was not closed in principle“.
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SNCF users should therefore expect complicated days in February: the CGT Cheminots and Sud Rail weighing more than 50% of the votes within the rail group, major disruptions are likely to be felt on the network. These mobilizations were expected: “We will block what we can block», warned last week the general secretary of the CGT Cheminots, Laurent Brun. The railway will not be the only sector to get under way in early February: the CGT Mines-Energie (FNME-CGT), for example, will be on strike on February 6.
For SNCF users, the pattern of the previous battle against the pension reform, in 2019-2020, seems destined to repeat itself: at the time, CFDT-Cheminots, Sud rail, Unsa-Ferroviaire and the CGT Cheminots had called for a renewable strike at the SNCF. It remains to be seen whether, this time, the general assemblies of railway workers will validate the plans of the CGT and Sud Rail, on the evening of January 31. And, if so, whether other unions will follow suit.
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