Watch out, bazaar! SNCF controllers announced this Monday, at midday, the maintenance of strike notices for Christmas and New Year weekends, via a press release broadcast by SUD-Rail, while not calling for stop work. A subtlety, incomprehensible for travelers, which aims to spare the goat and the cabbage.
Because internally, within the “national collective ASCT” (CNA) which brings together the striking controllers outside any trade union framework, no majority position has emerged. Clearly, some railway workers wanted to continue the strike, others not. This decision, to say the least ambiguous, allows each controller to assume their responsibilities without having to follow a national watchword.
It now remains to be seen what the traffic conditions will be for the next two weekends? During their previous social movement, at the beginning of December, the strike was very well attended among the 10,000 skippers, with 60% of TGVs and Intercités cancelled. This time, divided, they should be fewer to stop work. The movement should mainly affect the TGVs. It is indeed on the high-speed lines that the dissatisfaction is the greatest. If the controllers of the TER, and in particular the youngest, believe that they have been heard by the management of the SNCF, this is not the case for those of the TGV.
In a press release, Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs regrets the maintenance of the notices “while concrete and substantial measures were on the table after several weeks of negotiations, even if we take note of the choice of the trade union organizations not to call on strike”.
During a meeting with the strikers, on December 8, the SNCF proposed in particular to increase the work bonus for controllers by 600 euros per year, part of which would be integrated into the salary in 2024, as well as an additional allowance of 600 euros gross per year. Other specific promotion measures have been put on the table in order to facilitate the career development of skippers.
« We have done everything to find a favorable outcome and avoid a conflict that will be penalizing for travellers, assures Christophe Fanichet. We hope that the absence of a strike call will be heard by each skipper, at a time of year when the French rely so much on us to make them travel”.
The transport plan known from Tuesday
From now on, controllers who wish to go on strike have until Wednesday evening to inform management. But from this Tuesday, the SNCF ensures that a first transport plan will be communicated so that travelers can anticipate. It will be refined the following days. These notices are very bad news for the SNCF. The two weekends that frame the end of year celebrations are traditionally among the busiest.
Internally, among the controllers, it’s grimace soup. “We see the limits of a movement built outside the unions,” breathes a railway worker. While the CNA collective had to consult its members via its strong Facebook page of its 3,500 subscribers, the referendum was cut short. Soon enough, the organizers realized they had been hacked. Several registrants were not controllers, or even railway workers.
“We will see how the movement, without a call for a clear strike, will be followed, analyzes an SNCF executive. What is certain is that there is still strong dissatisfaction among the controllers”. As proof, while less than 30% of them had so far announced to management their intention to go on strike for the next two weekends, this figure has continued to increase since the meeting organized on Monday. morning between the strikers.
According to the CFDT, which maintains its notice like SUD Rail, over the two weekends “grey areas persist on the proposals put forward by management. The company bears the responsibility for the blockages”. It must be said that the situation is complex for the company. Should we save Christmas by meeting the financial demands of the controllers at the risk of seeing the other categories of railway workers claiming the same thing? Especially since at a two-digit gross premium advanced by the management, the captains require a three-digit number, in particular those of the TGVs and Intercités.