Jacques Serais / Photo credit: Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
The recent agreement signed between the management of the SNCF and the unions on the end of the careers of railway workers places the executive in a delicate position. The controllers will not strike during the May holidays, but the pension reform, adopted with force last year, sees its impact greatly reduced here.
The threat of a new strike averted. This Monday, an agreement on the end of the careers of railway workers was signed by the four unions representing SNCF and management. The controllers will therefore not stop working during the May bridges. But for the executive, this looks like false good news.
This agreement largely erases the impact of the pension reform for railway workers. Drivers, for example, will be able to start a cessation of activity 30 months before their retirement, with 15 months of non-work paid at 75%. The State being the sole shareholder of the SNCF, the Minister of the Economy was logically questioned, at the end of the Council of Ministers, about the government’s position with regard to this agreement.
“I have no further comments to make.”
“I refer you to the decisions of the management of the SNCF. I think that it is up to them to provide you with all the elements of explanation on an agreement which is a union agreement”, the tenant of Bercy simply replied . Relaunched by a journalist who wanted to know whether or not the minister welcomed this agreement, the person concerned contented himself with a laconic: “I have no other comments to make.”
Just after him, the government spokesperson, Prisca Thévenot, tried, despite everything, to justify this agreement, with an argument that was surprising to say the least. “What I see is that this is an agreement at the end of career management. And which concerns in particular difficult careers. And therefore this still respects the spirit of the pension reform that we led last year.” A response that says a lot about the cost of social peace three months before the Olympic Games.