Painful negotiating process over 35-hour week at SNCF

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April-May 1999 saw strike action by some train drivers at the SNCF state railway company, in protest against changes in the organisation of working time entailed by the implementation of the 35-hour working week, an issue which had been under negotiation for more than four months. The strike was initially called by the independent train drivers' union, FGAAC, and opposed by CGT, the largest union at SNCF.

Strike action was taken from 28 April to 7 May by a number of train drivers employed by the French state railway company, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer (SNCF). The strike was called to protest against changes in the organisation of working time entailed by the implementation of the move to the 35-hour working week, following the June 1998 legislation on the issue (FR9806113F). Initially, the strike was called only by the independent train drivers' union, Fédération générale autonome des agents de conduite (FGAAC). CGT, the main union in SNCF and among the drivers, was against the strike, which took place at the decisive point in negotiations between the company's management and all its unions, which had been underway for more than four months.

The unexpected strike nevertheless gained momentum. On the first day, an average of 19% of drivers, spread unevenly over the country, participated in the action, with the highest levels of support in the Paris area and inevitable consequences for service in the capital's suburban network (30% strike participation in the northern Paris area and 41% in the east). There was also disruption to mainline services in some regions. The next day, the level of support for the strike rose to 26%. Sud-Rail, the third-largest train drivers' union, joined the strike and called on all categories of staff in the company to support it. CGT-FO followed suit the next day and, most importantly, some CGT unions also supported the strike.

On 5 May, negotiations resumed, against a backdrop of the strike's potential escalation. The president of the SNCF, who apparently had to bring forward the announcement of the compromises he had intended to agree to at the end of the negotiations, received individual delegations from the unions. CGT and CFDT said that they were satisfied with the latest developments and together called for a "national day of protest" by the entire SNCF staff on Monday 10 May. After this announcement, support for the strike began to drop. Only 21% of train drivers were still on strike by Thursday 6 May, and fewer than 10% by Friday evening. While maintaining their opposition to the final agreement, FGAAC and Sud-Rail suspended their strike call, leaving only CGT-FO to prolong industrial action. The day of protest absorbed the remaining strikers, and although pamphlets were distributed on 10 May, normal service had been resumed.

Long-running negotiations

Discussions around the implementation of the 35-hour week in SNCF began in December 1998 (FR9901151F), after another strike, this time by ticket inspectors. The situation was a highly complicated one. Apart from the complications caused by the fact that there are eight trade unions and 250 categories of staff in the company, SNCF has experienced a difficult relationship between operational staff and middle management. The management's desire for working time reform has provoked an extraordinary amount of tension and deadlock at all levels within the company. Of the 174,000 staff with "SNCF status", 44,000 have already been officially working, on average, a 35-hour week since 1984. The nature of the work involved means that varying degrees of flexibility (according to the job in question) are necessary. The proposed 35-hour week agreement was thus supposed to find the right balance in the various fields of work, and find a formula that took account of the conditions appropriate to each type of job.

The main trade unions - including CGT and CFDT, which represent more than two-thirds of SNCF staff - as well as the managerial and professional Syndicat díagents de maîtrise et de cadres (SMC-UNSA) had made up their minds to "play the negotiating game". On the agenda was a reduction of working hours, but most importantly, the opportunity to create jobs and to introduce a "level playing field" in working conditions in all sectors. The negotiating process enabled advances to be made in wide-ranging areas of agreement but left three points of disagreement still to be resolved. These were pay policy, recruitment, and the management of the extra days off generated by the switch to the 35-hour week.

The draft agreement proposed for train drivers a kind of trade-off between extra days off (an increase from 119 to 126 days per year) and an extension of the working day, by 16 minutes (from seven hours 30 minutes to seven hours 46 minutes). This proposal was made on the basis of in-house opinion polls that appeared to show that train drivers favoured extra days off over other options. FGAAC stated on the first day of the strike that, "if it [the agreement] is accepted in this state, there will be greater flexibility" and "the specific nature of the driver's job will be jeopardised." The draft agreement provided that the days when the extra leave was taken would be decided by the management, and FGAAC felt that this choice would henceforth be an arbitrary affair. Moreover, the increase in the drivers' working day brought them closer into line with other categories of staff, particularly ticket inspectors, whom the SNCF management was more and more inclined to place together with drivers in a single category of "train crew".

The rejection of the draft agreement was far from unanimous among the train drivers concerned. The fact that a quarter of these employees (at the very height of the dispute) could jeopardise the overall balance of an agreement deemed acceptable by the most representative trade unions drew some harsh criticism from both within and outside the company. However, this situation indicated the high level of mistrust in some quarters of everything emanating from management of any kind, including at times, the leadership of the various unions.

Eventually an agreement saw reached, with SNCF management agreeing to the highest figure on the table regarding the number of new staff to be taken on (25,000 in three years, compared with 19,000 retirements) and to a review of the planned pay in wage policy. Finally, the choice of when to take extra days off is to be shared by management and the staff concerned.

A complex union strategy

After a heavy defeat in the 1996 workplace elections, FGAAC sought to show itself to be the vigilant guardian of the drivers' special requirements, and attempt to win back ground from its permanent competitor, CGT, which was in a difficult position. The CGT railworkers' federation had to deal with a a grassroots membership often prone to radicalism and distrustful of both the plans of the SNCF management and its own leadership's efforts to bring about change. CGT certainly did not want the recent dispute, and did what it could to convince its activists not to take part in it. Along with CFDT, it argued for several weeks for a referendum to be held among the entire staff in order to back the agreement that the two unions intended to give to the negotiated plan for the changeover to the 35-hour week. This initiative, like the strike notice filed in the middle of the dispute for the following week, was obviously aimed at pulling the rug from under the feet of the smaller unions tempted by the idea of "outbidding" the larger unions in a bargaining process specific to each category of employee. Some contradictions remain however, in the CGT's strategy, as the latest management concessions were extracted under the pressure of industrial action which, for the first time in many years, the CGT itself had not called.

Commentary

After some hesitation, the government decided that state-owned companies should not be left out of the process of reducing the working week, provided for under the "Aubry law" of 13 June 1998. After EDF-GDF (FR9902155N), SNCF was the second initiative in this area to have encountered difficulty. The reduction of working time is a hugely important issue which has revealed the accumulated complexity and unwieldliness of the major public sector companies. The unions, especially CGT, have realised that what is at stake is a possible fresh start indispensable for the continued specific status of state-owned companies. Job demarcation and occupational identities are being challenged, which has caused legitimate concern, though also responses that may endanger the balance of the company. Trade unionism finds itself on the horns of a dilemma. Unions whose culture has revolved around protest are now adopting a more complex strategy, based on a relationship between direct mobilisation and negotiation, while those unions based solely in one category of employee are facing up to a new pattern of job demarcation which may well ultimately challenge those unions' very existence. (Jean-Marie Pernot, IRES)