It is the strike that does not pass, unpopular in public opinion, costly for the SNCFunbearable for the government whose Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, had declared in mid-December that there would be “trains and planes at Christmas”.
All the members of the government therefore took turns to put pressure on the CEO of the railway company, Jean-Pierre Farandou. The latter received the trade unions, Thursday, December 22 from 6 p.m., in order to seek a way out of this movement followed by one out of two controllers. If it is too late to run more trains over the Christmas weekend, SNCF leaders, unions and controllers have until Wednesday December 28 to avoid further cancellations from December 30 to January 2, 8 hours.
As Emmanuel Macron threatens to review the strike notice rules, the tense meeting began with an update from Sud-Rail. For this union, we should not be surprised at the appearance of “collectives” such as the one formed by the controllers at the initiative of this strike movement, when we suppressed “70% of union membership” by merging the former works councils and health, safety and working conditions committees (CHSCT) into a single social and economic committee (CSE).
Management has put new proposals on the table : the creation of a “coordinator of the profession” controller “to deal with subjects and “irritants”” and recognize the specificities of this profession, reinforced commitments on employment – with 160 additional positions created in 2023 and 40 for sensitive trains – and on career development. Finally, the specific compensation for controllers would increase from 600 to 720 euros gross per year.
The trade unions have until Friday noon to accept the agreement and withdraw their notice. The UNSA-Ferroviaire has already done so, the CGT seemed ready but tried to convince Sud-Rail and the CFDT, still undecided.
An encysted malaise since 2006
Will this be enough to put an end to the extremism of the controllers? For many, their attitude is difficult to understand, including within the SNCF, because the captains are far from being the least well paid. But it is the result of an encysted malaise since 2006, the year of the “petitioners’ strike”, which has remained in the annals of the company for the rancor it created.
Following the rape of a controller in 2005, her colleagues walked off the job before launching a petition, outside the unions, to demand an improvement in their status. It had been signed by two-thirds of the captains or, as they are called in SNCF jargon, the “ASCT” (Agent service commercial train).
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