The law governing the exercise of the right to strike in transport is now in the crosshairs of President Macron for not having been able to limit the effects of the social movement of SNCF controllers, who deprived tens of thousands of French people of their trains during of the Christmas weekend. The government has therefore declared its intention to bring into a new ” framework “ transportation strikers.
The current legal framework is based on a 2007 text (revised in 2012). It was wanted by President Sarkozy, to the chagrin of the railway unions of the time. If it allowed users to no longer find themselves at the last minute, on station platforms, caught in a surprise strike, there is no shortage of blind spots and ambiguities. Starting with how it is commonly called: the “minimum service”. In fact, contrary to popular belief, the “Law on the continuity of public service in regular land passenger transport” does not in any way guarantee a minimum level of transport.
The right to strike, guaranteed by the Constitution, is indeed incompatible with the requisitioning of transport personnel on sick leave, the only measure that would allow a minimum service with certainty. French law is content to oblige the parties to discuss before launching a social movement and above all to organize reliable information for users on strike days.
“Square” notices
The text first provided for a real little marathon of consultations which can last from fifteen days to a month, or even more. Unions wishing to carry out a strike movement submit a request for immediate consultation (DCI) to the management, and are received within three days. Ten days after the DCI, if the consultation has produced nothing, the unions file a notice for a strike five days later at least (in fact, it is more often two weeks). All this time is supposed to be used to reach a negotiated solution before arriving at the stoppage of work. In addition, each aspiring striker is required to declare himself no later than forty-eight hours before the start of the movement: this is the individual declaration of intent or D2I. It allows the SNCF to estimate the number of non-striking railway workers with which the company will run the trains and to develop a reliable transport plan that it will have to announce to the public.
At the SNCF, the mechanism is appreciated by the management, which has the time to organize a reduced service and finally also by the unions, because it makes it possible to count the strikers upstream through the number of D2I. But it does not lack perverse effects. First, the SNCF may have an interest in maximizing the level of disruption so as not to be caught out by announcing departures of trains that cannot run in reality.
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