Un collective of controllers, independent of the unions, without a designated leader, is at the origin of a social movement which is on the way to depriving some 200,000 train passengers at a time when everyone, after two complicated years due to the pandemic of Covid-19, aspired to spend the holidays with the family. It’s about a “strike without call to strike”, as summarized by Jean-Pierre Farandou, the CEO of the SNCF. The French are witnessing a huge mess, the meaning of which they have trouble grasping.
This expression of anger from the controllers, which was amplified via a WhatsApp loop, then relayed on social networks, reflects the dissatisfaction of a category of employees, the on-board managers. Responsible for checking tickets, they feel unloved and mistreated by their employer in comparison to drivers. Like the latter, their working conditions involve many trips, but they are in contact with an increasingly demanding and sometimes aggressive public. During the Covid episode, they constituted the first line of SNCF employees, ensuring the continuity of the service until sometimes improvising themselves as controller of the wearing of the mask. Their need for recognition is legitimate.
Their method of asserting this recognition is much less so. The collective of controllers, devoid of specific representativeness, relied on two unions, the CGT and SUD-Rail, to make itself heard with management. They were offered salary increases accompanied by bonuses that could eventually be integrated into their remuneration. They have rejected them outright and have engaged in a hard conflict, the ins and outs of which they have no control over.
Contrary to what happened this fall in the fuel sector, the SNCF has not failed to negotiate, even if the agreement reached has only received the signature of the CFDT. For lack of interlocutors to negotiate, the management finds itself powerless and has no choice but to apologize to the customers and to make the taxpayer pay the compensation.
Multiplication of seizures
The Minister of Transport, Clément Beaune, judges the movement “incomprehensible”. The secretary general of the CFDT, Laurent Berger, believes that the strike in the middle of Christmas “is not justified”, especially since progress has been made. The other unions are conspicuous by their discretion. CGT and SUD-Rail did not explicitly call the controllers to strike, but “leave the union tool available”. A way of condoning the conflict, but without fully assuming the consequences.
However, this strike necessarily has some for the trade unions. The latter had planned to mobilize against the pension reform in January. The spontaneous movement of the controllers risks weakening this perspective, while the French are watched by weariness in the face of the multiplication of crises.
Controllers are not the only ones today to suffer from a lack of recognition of their profession. The hospital has been in crisis for years, the teachers are looking for an essential upgrade. Their legitimate claims are the subject of lengthy negotiations with complex and financially heavy stakes. In view of the New Year weekend, it is essential that the strikers are part of a negotiation process supervised by the intermediary bodies. A new draft agreement is submitted to the unions. If the captains do not seize this opportunity, they risk isolating themselves and seeing their fight wither in an unproductive anger only arousing the incomprehension of the French.