All SNCF unions have called for an indefinite strike from Wednesday December 11 to demand a moratorium against the announced dismantling of Fret SNCF. In a joint press release sent to AFP this Saturday, November 9, the CGT-Cheminots, Unsa-Ferroviaire, Sud-Rail and the CFDT-Cheminots explain that faced with the lack of “inflection” from the group’s management, the strike will be unlimited and renewable for periods of 24 hours starting Wednesday, December 11, at 7 p.m. The unions also reiterate their call for a strike from Wednesday, November 20, 7 p.m., to Friday, November 22, 8 a.m.
Fret SNCF, the leader in rail freight transport in France, will be replaced by two new companies in 2025, with 10% fewer employees. This is the culmination of almost two years of crisis within the public company, targeted by a European Commission procedure since the beginning of 2023. From next year, Hexafret will take care of freight transport, and Technis locomotive maintenance.
“Balkanization of the network”
The union federations “reaffirm that the establishment of a moratorium is possible and necessary to allow the various stakeholders to get back around the table, and find ways to guarantee not only the continuity of Fret SNCF, but also its development in the longer term. “This moratorium is essential given the suffering of our Freight colleagues,” they argue.
The unions denounce more broadly, in their press release, a “trajectory of fragmentation and Balkanization of the network”. For several weeks, they have been pointing the finger at “the privatization of TER, Transilien and Intercités activities” as well as “the breakup of SNCF Réseau” as a result of the opening to competition.
In mid-December, the first SNCF Voyageurs railway workers will be transferred to SNCF subsidiaries, created to respond to TER calls for tenders launched by the regions which have decided to open their railway network to competition. For the unions, this is a “strategy of internal social dumping assumed by the group, with the consequence of an atomization of social rules in the multiple rail SMEs that management intends to create for each lot open to competition”.