46-day strike at Marseilles Transport Authority
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After 46 days of industrial action, Marseilles transport authority employees voted to suspend the strike that had started on 3 October 2005, and was called to protest against the contracting out of public services to a private company. Throughout this tense struggle, the management of the Marseilles Transport Authority supported by Marseilles city council, did not want to yield any ground, and made a number of attempts to thwart the strike.
At the request of the unions at the Marseilles transport authority (Régie des transports marseillais, RTM), Marseilles transport authority workers took their strike action at the same time as the call for a national cross-sector day of action and mobilisation was launched by the five unions with national representative status on 4 October 2005, the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT), the French Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff - General Confederation of Professional and Managerial Staff (Confédération française de l’encadrement - Confédération générale des cadres, CFE-CGC), the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC), the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT) and the General Confederation of Labour - Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail - Force ouvrière, CGT-FO) (FR0511102F).
There were a number of demands motivating the mobilisation of the RTM unions, particularly that the authority’s management withdraw its plan to contract out public transport services. The decision taken by the Communauté urbaine de Marseilles-Provence-Métropole (CU-MPM), a body in which all the local councils in the Greater Marseilles area are represented, provided that after a call for tender, the contracting out (Délégation de service public - DSP) and the operation of the future tramline from 2007, is to be entrusted to the private rail firm Connex (a subsidiary of the Veolia group) (FR0507101N- FR0104141N).
The climate of discussions between unions and management became increasingly tense over a period of weeks, and led to the development of many strategies by both parties, even though dialogue continued. Each side remained in its entrenched stance for many weeks.
The unions feared that the alliance between the RTM and the Connex would assume the form of a joint venture for 8 years, and that this would be the thin end of the wedge, spelling out the 'beginning of the privatisation of the RTM'.
Both the management of the RTM and the Mayor of Marseilles, Jean-Claude Gaudin (UMP), challenged this interpretation of the plan and mobilised everything at their disposal to find a solution to the paralysis of the transport system of one of the three largest cities in France, with a population of more than 1.4 million:
- 21 October 2005: the Mayor announces the implementation of a temporary replacement for public transport public.
- 2 November: the mediator requested by the authorities (the City council with the support of the Villepin administration), Bernard Brunhes, an industrial relations consultant, did not manage to defuse the industrial strife. The proposals tabled are confined to the idea of setting up a joint subsidiary of the RTM (majority shareholder) and Connex (with 40% of the shares). The unions, which want the RTM to run the two tramlines on its own, and reject the DSP, did not win the argument. The CGT found the alternatives available 'the devil or the deep blue sea, that is either a contracting out of the operation of tram lines, or setting up a subsidiary' unacceptable. The CGT-FO declared that talks had ended in 'total failure', and strongly criticised the threat made by the management and the city council to use an injunction.
- 21 November: after progress in other areas of the transport authority workers’ protest, the CGT-FO and the National Federation of Independent Union (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA) sign an end-of-strike protocol, stating that 'you have to know when to stop'.
- 22 November: the judge at the Marseilles Court dismissed the CGT Secretary of the Works Council’s petition for the hiring of workers on fixed-term contracts by the RTM management to be prevented during the strike. These new recruitments, made to compensate for the epidemic in which 273 drivers took sick leave (as opposed to the usual 90), enabled RTM to provide a sporadic service consisting of around 50 buses, compared to the usual 500 (not including underground trains).
After a steady resumption of normal service (with 79% of underground trains running, as of 21 November, in the RTM management’s estimation), the strike, which had the support or sympathy of 29% of those questioned, according to an opinion poll commissioned by France Télévision (the France Bleu Province radio network), ended with the cross-union co-ordinating body voting to return to work on 24 November.
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