- Title: FRANCE: France's powerful railroad unions continue their open-ended strike
- Date: 23rd November 2005
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (French) UNIDENTIFIED TRAIN TRAVELLER "One must leave very early, otherwise where I live I cannot take the train I need to take. I left very early today; it is really annoying."
- Embargoed: 8th December 2005 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: France
- Country: France
- Topics: Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA9BPGNKMGXAVQ267EYHABKXRPM
- Story Text: France's powerful railroad unions continued an open-ended strikeTuesday (November 23), challenging a government already weakened by three weeks of rioting in the country's suburban housing projects.
The strike, which started on Monday (22 November), appeared more intractable than five previous ones called this year by railroad unions, with the national railroad company, SNCF, estimating that two out of three domestic trains would be cancelled Tuesday (November 23)
Union leaders, who predicted that the strike would last well into the week if not beyond, cited the fear of future privatizations as one of the reasons for the action. But the core of the dispute appears to be the European Union's plans to open the Continent's market for rail freight to outside competition next year.
The EU agreement is designed to reduce the reliance on trucks: Only 15 percent of the freight carried in Europe travels by rail. But French union leaders said they were opposed to any plan that involves competition with other railroad companies.
French railroad workers are among the most privileged in France: Retirement age is set at 50 or 55 years old, compared with 65 in the private sector, and they enjoy legal protections that make dismissal, for example, even more difficult than for ordinary employees.
In calling the strike, the four unions said they were demanding that the "SNCF keep its monopoly over the maintenance, use and management of all infrastructure and rail-related installations."
French railroads must open the domestic freight network to foreign operators by March 31. That is nine months before other European countries because Paris received permission from Brussels to invest 1.5 billion, or $1.8 billion, in its freight business in exchange for an earlier opening date.
Transportation workers in Marseille have been on strike for more than a month over the proposed privatization of a street car system. Workers at the national electricity company, EDF, organized a rally in Paris in October opposed to privatization.
The SNCF announced that express international services would be affected by the strike, but not nearly as badly as domestic services. Four out of five Eurostar and Thalys trains to London and Brussels would run, the company estimated.
Only one out of four or five suburban RER trains would be running, the SNCF said, and some regional routes would be cancelled. The largest union, the CGT, also called a 36-hour strike for the Paris Metro starting on Tuesday.
The unions sent a letter to the head of the SNCF last week demanding that a restructuring effort be stopped, that the government finance a modernization effort of the railroads, that the company hire 1,000 new full-time employees this year, that the practice of hiring people on temporary contracts stop and that the company immediately open salary negotiations with the goal of meeting a higher cost of living. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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