A rolling general strike at SNCF scheduled to begin today Wednesday 11 December at 7 pm is likely to have only a limited impact on traffic. Especially considering that two unions pulled out of the strike, industry players seem to be less concerned.
Alexandre Gallo, head of DB Cargo France and president of French rail association AFRA, told Railfreight.com that with two unions having withdrawn the strike call the strength of support for industrial action could be questioned. No one at Rail Logistics Europe, the structure grouping SNCF’s rail freight subsidiaries, including Fret SNCF, was immediately available to comment.
“However, it seems that the most mobilised of SNCF workers to strike are those in the Paris region. For the moment we are waiting for the SNCF Réseau to verify what access (to the network) will be made available to rail freight operators in the context of industrial action.” Gallo revealed that last week a local strike in eastern France had prevented DB Cargo France from operating trains between France and Germany for almost 24 hours.
Rémy Crochet, the president of the French intermodal freight association GNTC, sounded a reassuring note on the likely impact of the strikes to come from this evening, telling Railfreight.com: “For the moment, the level of disruption is very low and the vast majority of trains should be running normally.”
Ministry remains optimistic
Meanwhile, commenting on the strikes, acting French Transport minister, François Durovray, said his calls for responsibility and social dialogue had been heard. He explained with satisfaction, that he had “personally conducted several dozen meetings over the last two months with unions from the various transport sectors to engage in dialogue, ease tensions and find solutions”. He added: “The black December and labour relations winter […] that some doomsayers were predicting has been avoided”.
SUD-Rail and CGT will go on strike
As Railfreight.com reported earlier this week, following an agreement reached between the French railway’s management and the group’s four main labour unions, two of the latter, UNSA and the CFDT, decided to withdraw their endorsement of unlimited industrial action, which has been called in protest to the winding-up of Fret SNCF and also the opening up of competition on local passenger services.
The CGT and SUD-Rail, the two unions, traditionally the most militant, have maintained the call to industrial action from this evening,11 December. Recognising the guarantees obtained for rail freight workers, Sud Rail now wants the same benefits for staff employed on SNCF’s local passenger services. There is also the issue of a wage increase offer which to date only the CFDT and UNSA have accepted.
However, yesterday SNCF announced that it expected “normal” traffic on its high-speed TGV and low-cost passenger services Ouigo lines, with only minor disruption on regional lines with an average of 8 trains out of 10 running. As for local traffic, it said there will be disruption on certain lines and in several regions.