“We are in the golden age of trains,” said the boss of the Voyageurs subsidiary, Christophe Fanichet, at the start of the year. And the SNCF accounts are affected. In 2023, the rail transport group announced that it would be profitable for the third consecutive year, with a net profit of 1.3 billion euros for a turnover of almost 42 billion. A profit down compared to the previous year, but which the managers of the public company consider satisfactory due to the deterioration of the economic context and the weight of inflation. The CEO of SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, continued to assure, during the presentation of the financial results in Saint-Denis on February 28, that these performances would continue to benefit employees.
They have already benefited from 800 euros in exceptional bonuses for the past year, without this easing tensions within the group, as evidenced by the controllers’ strike during the February holidays. Hence the creation of a “platform for social progress”, which Jean-Pierre Farandou hopes will make it possible in particular to “identify the field of accessible demands” and to “discuss all of the needs of railway workers” as well. of course on remuneration as well as working conditions and career ends, rather than “adding up categorical demands by professions, or even by sub-occupations”. The initiative also aims to launch a reflection on the envelope dedicated to remuneration for the next three years, something never seen before at SNCF, according to its CEO – whose mandate ends in May.
A sufficient effort to streamline social dialogue within the group? Speaking at Sciences Po Paris, the historian and specialist in trade unionism and social conflicts Stéphane Sirot discusses the challenges of social dialogue within the SNCF.
L’Express: The CEO of SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, proposed a method of dialogue which he calls “social progress platform”. In an interview with World, he hopes in particular that it will avoid using “the strike as an entry point for social dialogue”. Is this initiative likely to streamline internal exchanges?
Stéphane Sirot: There is reason to be quite doubtful about what this system could bring compared to what already exists in terms of conflict prevention. For around twenty years, the SNCF has deployed a social alarm system similar to that implemented at the RATP. As soon as a problem or dispute is identified, company management and/or union organizations can sound the alarm in order to convene a meeting to try to resolve the situation. In fact, it is exceptional for labor conflicts to be sudden. They are usually announced in advance. The latest movement of the ship’s leaders confirms this, since there were two social alarms before the work stoppage announced in February. This is proof that these devices are not enough to resolve these problems.
How do you explain that social dialogue seems so chaotic at SNCF? Do you consider it more failing than in other public companies?
Other public companies, such as EDF, were built with what we call a union institution which participated in a certain way in the definition of the group’s strategy and this, for a historical reason. It turns out that EDF and GDF were nationalized by Marcel Paul, a minister who was himself general secretary of the CGT Federation. This helped to generate an integrated system of social relations, without of course preventing the emergence of conflicts. But the actors tended to seek compromises. The SNCF is not in the same configuration: conflict has always been relatively strong there and it is more and more so since the company is caught up in processes of liberalization and opening to competition, as well as ‘to the deconstruction of the status and identity of railway workers.
How do these phenomena impact social relations in the company?
Social relations are more tense because the dominant union holds to the idea of public service around which it has built a strong identity. Furthermore, these processes have generated enormous changes in the structure of companies and the work of employees. What is striking in the statistics on strike days at the SNCF is that the most intense period in conflicts is the last 25 to 30 years, during which the most important changes in terms of structuring took place. and working conditions. It is on the management of change that the management of the SNCF should place the emphasis. If conflicts arise each time, it is in particular because there is a problem of supporting change, which seems imposed or insufficiently negotiated. This is all the more important since the end of status hiring will undoubtedly further contribute to making things more complex.
That’s to say ?
What, from my point of view, helped to make social relations more fluid was the railway worker identity which created a united social group represented by trade union organizations carrying general demands. Business fragmentation [NDLR : la SNCF a été recomposée en cinq sociétés anonymes] and identities makes things very difficult to handle for both the unions and management, especially since the SNCF is suffering the effects of the Macron orders which created the Social and Economic Committees. In many sectors, including public companies, the reduction in delegation hours due to the merger of bodies and the expansion of the geographical perimeters of elected officials have caused a form of distance from representation. This is one of the reasons why we see collectives flourishing, such as those of captains.
What does the emergence of these collectives, which are often created on social networks, change for dialogue in companies like the SNCF?
This only complicates it: these collectives are established between the union organizations and company management, and escape institutional social dialogue to the extent that they are not represented as such in collective dialogue bodies. This worries management all the more as these structures have a fairly spectacular capacity to mobilize their professions and their interlocutors have difficulty understanding their requests. The success of recent movements at the SNCF demonstrates the fact that these collectives are establishing themselves in a lasting manner, which can only disrupt institutional social relations. We will have to take stock of this sort of categorical withdrawal, and the idea that accompanies it, of what we could call the “trials of life”, to use an expression from Pierre Rosanvallon.
What do you mean ?
It is, ultimately, the experience of employees, whether for example psychosocial risks or the feeling of discrimination. These elements have become strongly established in social relations, but they are difficult to capture, measure and transpose into a collective agreement, because they do not only translate into financial compensation. Here again, these “tests of life” make social relationships much more difficult to maneuver. The SNCF has put in place employee satisfaction indicators, which is a good thing, but does not seem sufficient. Should these indicators be reviewed? Think about another formula? I think that one of the solutions to make social relations less conflictual will involve the ability to equip ourselves with instruments to better understand these issues.
Listening to you, appeasement seems unlikely in the short term at the SNCF…
The company must address a whole series of issues that are difficult to address jointly. At the same time, the management of the SNCF cannot appear immobile because the social question is added to numerous problems, such as the punctuality of the trains, the maintenance of the network, the obsolescence of the equipment, etc. This creates a rather unfavorable climate. around the company, especially since several social conflicts occurred during school holidays. But if the proposed measures are put in place, it will take some time before they demonstrate their effectiveness.
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