One-day strike held at SNCF

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Seven railworkers' trade unions called a strike at French National Railways (SNCF) on 19 January 2005, in opposition to the company’s 2005 budget, job losses and any future threat to the public service status of rail transport. This was the first test of the dispute-prevention scheme put in place at SNCF in late 2004.

On 19 January 2005, seven of the eight trade unions represented at French National Railways (Société nationale des chemins de fer français, SNCF) called their members out on strike. The unions involved were: the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT); the French Christian Workers’ Confederation (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens, CFTC); the General Confederation of Labour (Confédération générale du travail, CGT); the General Confederation of Labour-Force ouvrière (Confédération générale du travail-Force Ouvrière, CGT-FO); the General Independent Federation of Locomotive Engineers (Fédération générale autonome des agents de conduite, FGAAC); the rail section of Solidarity, Unity, Democracy (Solidaires unitaires et démocratiques, SUD-Rail); and the National Federation of Independent Unions (Union nationale des syndicats autonomes, UNSA).

The strike call was reportedly followed by 38% of rail workers. Both the company’s management and the trade unions deemed this a significant turn-out. The industrial action was designed as a protest at SNCF’s 2005 budget and as a warning shot regarding the maintenance of the public service status of rail transport. In a conciliatory gesture, the company’s management scaled down its current plan to shed 3,990 jobs by 300. However, it was quick to state that this decision had nothing to do with the level of strike action on 19 January.

The planned job losses - to be achieved without recourse to redundancies - will reduce the company’s workforce to under 170,000, down from 500,000 just after the Second World War and 287,000 in 1972. The unions, which have recognised that technological advances and productivity gains have been achieved, see this reduction as an abandonment of SNCF’s public service mission. SNCF’s management has argued that its plans to shed jobs are due to a drop-off in business, pointing to specific problems arising from strikes in 2003 (FR0402103N) and a reduction in freight traffic in 2004 and 2005. There was a stay in the workforce-reduction process between 1999 and 2002 as a result of increased rail traffic and the move-over to the 35-hour working week (FR9905182F). SNCF’s management has argued that its workforce-reduction plan is necessary due to a drop in the number of rail passengers and, more significantly, in freight traffic.

The trade unions have taken issue with this contention. CGT, which is the largest union at SNCF (with 47.1% of votes cast at the most recent elections of workers' representatives) has denounced the direction the company has been taking, which in its opinion, is in line with an 'ultra-liberal' policy now in vogue in France and Europe in general. The drop in state financial support for the maintenance of rolling stock as well as for capital spending on the part of the French Rail Network (Réseau ferré de France, RFF) and SNCF - state-run entities responsible for the rail network and its operation respectively - is due to EU pressure prohibiting the French government from subsidising rail freight traffic. The unions all reject the contention of EU Transport Commissioner, Jacques Barrot, that these subsidies 'distort competition'. They see the policy instead as a move to promote road transport. A current move to break up SNCF into various smaller entities is seen as the latest episode in a well-established policy of having different statuses for parent company employees and the staff of the various subcontractors grouped around it. RFF, responsible for running the network, is itself in the process of restructuring. The trade unions are opposed to this process which they see as leading to the partial or total privatisation of SNCF.

Only the SNCF’s second-largest trade union, SUD Rail (15% of votes cast at the most recent workplace elections), had called for the extension of the strike beyond the 24-hour action initially planned, but failed to garner any significant support.

For a time, the strike led to renewed calls for legislation guaranteeing a minimum public transport service during periods of industrial action. The Minister of Transport, Gilles de Robien, supported by the Prime Minister and the heads of the state-run rail transport companies (SNCF and the RATP Paris transport authority) ruled out any movement in this direction, pointing out that passengers had not experienced any major inconvenience on the day of the strike. While the 'industrial dispute warning system' put in place by an agreement on dispute prevention signed on 28 October 2004 (FR0412101N) was not really relevant to the strike on 19 January 2005, SNCF did live up to its own pledge to provide its passengers with information on service disruption. This was the first time that passengers had been provided with detailed information prior to a strike whose duration had been clearly specified. As is often the case, public opinion was, on balance, favourable to the strike, especially since this time passengers were able to anticipate its impact on their travel plans.

However, the debate on this issue is far from over. The head of the majority government party, the Union for a People's Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire, UMP), and the Movement of French Enterprises (Mouvement des entreprises de France, MEDEF) employers' confederation have renewed their calls for legislation guaranteeing a minimum public transport service during strikes (FR0502103N).