The trains at the platform the first weekend of the Christmas holidays? The SUD-Rail union decided on Friday, December 9 to maintain its call for a switchmen’s strike, from December 15 to 19, after a day of negotiations with the management of the SNCF, whose proposals “border on contempt”judged the union.
The CGT-Cheminots for its part qualified the management’s proposals as“insufficient” and said to think about calling for a national movement, without giving notice for the moment, like the other representative organizations, Unsa-Ferroviaire and CFDT-Cheminots.
SNCF signalmen operate the network: without them, the trains cannot run. They demand better recognition of their profession and an improvement in their working conditions. “There is still time for SNCF management to continue negotiations if it wants to avoid a major conflict”SUD-Rail insisted in a statement, calling on traffic officers to continue to “mass deposit” their declarations of intent, which are compulsory for going on strike.
The management proposed to the unions to allocate the signalmen a “discount of service” ten minutes at each shift. Traffic officers, who work in 3×8 shifts, must indeed arrive or leave later at the time of the relief to pass the baton to the next team. SUD-Rail required twenty minutes.
Threat to Christmas and New Year
Another measure put on the table by SNCF Réseau: “A fixed monthly allowance of 60 euros [brut] » paid from June 2023 and which will be permanent in order to recognize the specificities of the profession. A measurement “far from responding to our claim [300 euros par mois comptant pour la retraite et maintenue en cas d’inaptitude] »replied SUD-Rail.
Unsa-Ferroviaire, which took part in the round table, described these measures as “real progress”. “It’s a big step forward from the company, especially when you know the problems of SNCF Réseau” whose finances are limited, assured Yoann Saugues, federal secretary Unsa-Ferroviaires.
SNCF Réseau did not wish to react. Another risk of social conflict weighs on the SNCF at the end of the year with this time the controllers who threaten to strike on Christmas and New Year weekends.
However, the management of SNCF Voyageurs, which deals with train personnel in the public group, qualified the exchanges that took place on Thursday with the unions and a collective of controllers of “positive and of good standard”. “We are really not far from an agreement” despite “a few stumbling blocks”, Nicolas Limon, one of the founders of the collective, told Agence France-Presse. Management gave the parties a week to decide.