Only the CGT Cheminots and SUD-Rail want to continue the movement on Wednesday February 8. SARAH MEYSSONNIER / REUTERS
The organizations within the railway group, including the CGT Cheminots and SUD-Rail, intend to mobilize in the days to come. But present a disunited front.
The main SNCF unions called on Wednesday for a third day of strike against the pension reform on Tuesday February 7, following the general slogan, but only the CGT Cheminots and SUD-Rail want to continue the movement on Wednesday 8, and the indecision persists for Saturday 11. The leaders of the representative unions, CGT Cheminots, Unsa railway, SUD Rail and CFDT, were to meet at the beginning of the afternoon, the day after a second day of strike which was fairly disrupted traffic despite declining participation.
The CFDT did not come but the four trade union organizations agreed to follow the confederal call to stop work on Tuesday 7, the third day of unitary protest, participants told AFP. The CGT Cheminots and SUD Rail maintain their call for a strike the next day, the 8th, without being followed by Unsa and the CFDT who stick to the watchword of the eight main French unions.
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“We all agree on 7. The CGT and SUD are doing 7 and 8. Afterwards, the question of 11 arises”, a Saturday of vacation departures from zone B – also the middle weekend of those in zone A – explained Didier Mathis, secretary general of Unsa railway. The railway Unsa “calls for mobilization, not strikes”he specified. “We will call a priori in a unitary way to demonstrate on 11”, added Cédric Robert, spokesman for the CGT Cheminots. “Regarding the 11th, we debated the possibility of not having a call for a strike at the SNCF on this day and of having a simple call for demonstrations”told AFP the federal secretary of SUD-Rail, Erik Meyer.
Details for February 11 given in the coming days
“We do not want to block the crossover of the holidays”, especially since “the objective of a call on February 11 is not so much the percentage of strikers as the fact of having in the street all employees who do not have the financial capacity to go on strike and respond to calls during the week”, he specified. The position of the unions can be clarified for Saturday 11 “by the weekend or early next week”, according to him. The CFDT Cheminots wants to be on its side “fully (registered) in the process of the intersyndicale”according to its secretary general Thomas Cavel.
“For the moment, we want to succeed on 7. (…) Each step is important“, he said, remaining vague on his position for the 11. The union had however called in a press release, Wednesday morning, to “Massively mobilize through strike and demonstration on Tuesday February 7 and then Saturday 11”. The SNCF had to remove a third of the TGVs, almost all the Intercités, three quarters of the TERs and up to 90% of the trains in the Paris suburbs on Tuesday, the second day of protest against the pension reform. The rate of strikers was down to 36.5% from 46.3% on the first day on January 19. SUD Rail’s Erik Meyer remains “persuaded” that a renewable strike “will make this government bend”but the railway workers do not want to go on strike without being followed by other mobilized sectors, he noted, without giving a date.
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