Two out of five TGVs will be canceled on the weekend of December 24 and 25 according to estimates by SNCF management. About 200,000 users out of the 800,000 who planned to take the train for Christmas will therefore not be able to travel. To pass the pill, the company intends to reimburse double the amount of canceled tickets in the form of vouchers. An “incomprehensible and unjustifiable” strike estimated this Thursday, December 22, the Minister for Transport, Clément Beaune, at the microphone of franceinfo, who however swept away the idea of a requisition of the strikers. The call to suspend work for the next two weekends seems to have taken SNCF management by surprise, especially since it does not come from the unions, but from an informal collective created on Facebook in September.
The latter, known as the “collective national ASCT” (CNA) for “commercial train service agents”, is made up of approximately 3,500 railway workers out of a total workforce of 10,000 controllers of TGVs, Intercity trains and regional express trains (TER). Apolitical and non-unionized, this movement of controllers dissatisfied with their working conditions was already at the origin of the strike of December 3 and 4 which led to the abolition of 60% of the TGVs. is reminiscent of the movement of yellow vests.
Born on social media
“Another controller and I had been talking non-stop about our problems and our expectations for several months. We have extended it to several other people in Marseille, and in other regions”, told L’Express in early December. Olivier, one of the members at the initiative of the movement, who works in the Marseille metropolis. “Our missions are increasingly broad and our tasks increasingly diversified. We want recognition”, continues the controller, citing the integration of bonuses in the salary, as well as demands on the improvement of the progress of their career or on the organization of work.
The movement was born in June “by the creation of a discussion group” which is gradually gaining momentum. After Whatsapp, the group is therefore launching on Facebook and Telegram where it is managed by a dozen people sharing press articles and videos relating to the mobilization as well as the living conditions of the workers. However, the private group is no longer visible today on Facebook.
Following a meeting with the CNA and the unions, including the CFDT and SUD rail – which took the group of controllers under their wing so that it could sit at the table with the management – several proposals were formulated by management on December 8. Among them, a work bonus for the captains (official name of the controllers) of 600 euros per year, part of which would be integrated into the salary in 2024, plus an additional allowance of 600 euros per year. If the railway Unsa affirmed that these were proposals “of a good level”, the collective rejected them. “We are talking about 600 euros gross per year, and the company has added an allowance of 600 euros gross, or 38 euros net per month, well below what we expected”, reacted Olivier on France Inter Wednesday.
The weekend of the 31st on hold
On the side of the SNCF, we claim to have “done everything to avoid this strike” denounced by the CFDT “We have given every chance to social dialogue”, considers the CEO of SNCF Voyageurs, Christophe Fanichet. The management of the SNCF sought to limit the effects of the movement by calling on managers from the ASCT service and volunteers to replace some of the strikers. But if the TER can circulate without controllers on board, it is however prohibited for the TGV. Their trains are not equipped with cameras to verify that the doors are closed without risk, the task falls to the controllers.
Before calling for a strike again, the collective of controllers wanted to survey its troops on Monday. Problem, the Facebook group was the subject of a cyberattack with false profiles calling into question the sincerity of the vote. The vote was therefore ultimately cancelled. It is up to the unions to survey their members directly.
At the end of the Council of Ministers on Thursday, government spokesman Olivier Véran asked “all those who have announced that they want to strike to give up” preventing hundreds of thousands of French people from finding their loved ones. While denouncing an action carried out by only “a few hundred” people “grouped within an anonymous collective”. If it is too late to prevent disruptions on the lines for the Christmas weekend, there is still hope for the New Year’s Eve. “Saving next weekend is the fight we must fight, we must avoid as many problems as possible”, insisted Clément Beaune this morning. The CEO of the SNCF, Jean-Pierre Farandou, assured that he would receive the trade unions Friday morning, in the hope of saving the New Year weekend, for which a strike notice is also posed. “I do not understand this strike”, conceded the boss of the public group, recalling that there was “no call for a strike from any union”.