The National Collective of Trains Commercial Service has also made a notice for Christmas and New Year weekends but ensures that “the maximum so that there is no strike at Christmas”. Compulsory annual negotiations must engage Wednesday at the level of the SNCF group.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
The weekend may be complicated for TGV passengers and intercity trains. A strike launched by a collective of controllers forced the SNCF to cancel 60 % of these trains from Friday to Sunday.
The controllers decided to stop work throughout the weekend, to claim better recognition of their status. “In total, we are more than 80 % to be on strike and more than 90 % on the TGV, it is unheard of,” assured the agency France-Presse (AFP) Nicolas Limon, member of the collective National of Trains Commercial Service (CNA), launched in September on Facebook outside of any union framework and which today has nearly 3,000 members. The unions (Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail, CFDT-Cheminots and Fo-Cheminots) have since all supported the movement, with the exception of the CGT-Cheminots.
The almost 10,000 SNCF chiefs, of which nearly 3,000 work on TGV and intercités, have an essential function in terms of traffic safety and travelers. Without them, trains cannot circulate. The weekend promises to be extremely disturbed and a “progressive recovery” is envisaged on Monday, with 3 trains out of 4 on all TGV axes. The Atlantic axis is particularly affected, with only 1 TGV out of 4, as for the Ouigo.
the SNCF “surprise” by this movement
“Management did not take the measure of the discontent”, assured AFP Rénald Szpitalnik, elected Sud-rail and controller in the TGV Paris-Milan. The collective has been received twice by management, but without concrete advances, before putting its threat of strike. Div>
“It is a strike that we have not seen arriving, neither we nor the unions,” admitted Thursday the president and chief executive officer of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, during a conference organized by The magazine Challenges. “We were a little surprised by this movement,” he admitted.
“We are not considered rolling staff when we work three weekends a month and we do not sleep with us ten evenings in the month,” explains Nicolas Limon. With the CNA, he claims to integrate various premiums into the basic salary so that they are taken into account in the calculation of retirement.
These premiums are indexed to the activity and are therefore not paid in the event of a clove or during the leave, also denounces the railway worker, which is one of the six controllers at the origin of the creation of the collective. The management of SNCF Travelers says it has proposed “an increase in the work bonus of 600 euros per year for all the managers”, a “partial” integration of it “at the fixed salary in 2024”, “Acceleration of the progression of remuneration “and” the passage to two chiefs of edge per train for all the incredible TGV in three years “.
possible disturbances at Christmas
Proposals that have not calmed the mobilization. “We are not revolutionaries, but we need concrete,” says Nicolas Limon. The collective has filed a strike notice for Christmas and New Year weekends, in order to put pressure on the SNCF, but “we will do their maximum so that there is no strike at Christmas”, A Promised M. Limon.
This mobilization occurs on the eve of the start of compulsory annual negotiations (NAO), which must engage Wednesday at the level of the SNCF group. The CGT, South-Rail and the CFDT called for a “unitary strike” that day. After this date, the negotiations between chiefs’ and management should resume and “between December 8 and 22, we will have fifteen days to reset a dialogue” and reach an agreement, said Nicolas Limon.
Jean-Pierre Farandou said, for his part, hope to be able to “find a balance between (…) Price of tickets on the one hand, increase in railway workers on the other, have resources to innovate and to invest …” .