SNCF. “Additional measures” proposed to avoid the New Year strike

Will the controllers’ strike continue into the New Year? While the social movement will disrupt the circulation of TGVs over the Christmas weekend, the management of the SNCF brought together this Thursday evening by videoconference the unions of the public group to find a solution.

At the end of this meeting, the management proposed “additional measures” for the controllers. The unions have until Friday 12 p.m. to decide on a « draft agreement » which proposes « strong additional measures in favor of the recognition of the profession of skipper, the creation of positions, and the progression of their careers,” SNCF said in a statement.

Government pressure

CGT-Cheminots, Unsa-Ferroviaire, SUD-Rail and CFDT-Cheminots were invited as the government put pressure on SNCF management to find a solution before the New Year weekend, too. threatened with strike notice.

« What we expect from the management of the SNCF today is that it finds a solution in the next few hours, I mean in the next few hours », declared the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on Sud Radio this morning. And at the end of the Council of Ministers, the government spokesman Olivier Véran had asked the SNCF agents to “give up” the strike and “to hear the legitimate request of the French to be able to find their family in good conditions. « . Transport Minister Clément Beaune had condemned an « incomprehensible and unjustifiable » strike.

The strike is led by an informal group of captains organized on Facebook and rejecting any union membership, which makes negotiations very complicated. Nearly half of the controllers will be on strike this weekend, causing the cancellation of one train out of three on Friday, two trains out of five on Saturday and Sunday, especially TGVs.

« We gave everything to avoid the strike, » assured Jean-Pierre Farandou, insisting on the mandatory annual negotiations which ratified in early December an average salary increase of nearly 6% in 2023 for railway workers, according to him. “And for the TGV captains, we even added 1.5 more points,” he underlined. “We have created jobs, we have guaranteed that there will be two skippers per TGV and we have made career development commitments”.

According to Fabien Dumas, SUD-Rail federal secretary, who is not calling for a strike, « what was put on the table by management for the captains was very far from the demands » « There was a minimum way of negotiate better. We have been negotiating since the beginning of November, so returning responsibility for the canceled trains to the employees, I find the string a little big, ”he regretted.

But the unions are not comfortable with this strike, which they have no control over. “This situation is unacceptable”, launched the secretary general of the CFDT Laurent Berger. “The CFDT does not support this strike and I do not support it personally”.

The CFDT-Cheminots did not call a strike but, like the CGT-Cheminots and SUD-Rail, nevertheless maintained its notice, which gives the controllers the framework to stop work. The collective is unreachable, and their private group is no longer visible on Facebook.