The main SNCF unions called this Wednesday February 1 for a third day of strike against the pension reform on Tuesday February 7, following the general slogan, but only the CGT Cheminots and SUD-Rail want to continue the movement on next day, and the indecision persists for Saturday 11.
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The leaders of the representative unions, CGT Cheminots, Unsa railway, SUD Rail and CFDT, were to meet at the beginning of the afternoon, the day after a second day of strike which considerably disrupted traffic despite declining participation.
The CFDT did not come but the four trade union organizations agreed to follow the confederal call to stop work on Tuesday 7, the third day of unitary protest, participants told AFP.
The CGT Cheminots and SUD Rail maintain their call for a strike the next day, the 8th, without being followed by Unsa and the CFDT who stick to the watchword of the eight main French unions.
Strike on February 11 decided by next week
“We all agree on 7. The CGT and SUD are doing 7 and 8. Afterwards, the question of 11 arises”, a Saturday of vacation departures from zone B – also the middle weekend of those in zone A – explained Didier Mathis, secretary general of Unsa railway. The railway Unsa “calls for mobilization, not strikes”he specified. “We will call a priori in a unitary way to demonstrate on the 11th”added Cédric Robert, spokesman for the CGT Cheminots.
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“Regarding the 11th, we debated the possibility of not having a call for a strike at the SNCF on this day and of having a simple call for demonstrations”told AFP the federal secretary of SUD-Rail, Erik Meyer.
“We don’t want to block the crossover of the holidays”especially as “the objective of an appeal on February 11 is not so much the percentage of strikers as the fact of having in the street all the employees who do not have the financial capacity to go on strike and respond to calls during the week », he specified. The position of the unions can be clarified for Saturday 11 “by the end of the week or the beginning of next week”according to him.
The CFDT Cheminots wants to be on its side “fully (registered) in the approach of the inter-union”according to its secretary general Thomas Cavel. “For the moment, we want to succeed on 7. (…) Each step is important”he said, remaining vague about his position for the 11th. The union had however called in a press release, this Wednesday morning, to “Massively mobilize through strike and demonstration on Tuesday February 7 and then Saturday 11”.
No strike without other sectors mobilized
The railway company had to remove a third of the TGVs, almost all the Intercités, three quarters of the TERs and up to 90% of the trains in the Paris suburbs on Tuesday, the second day of protest against the pension reform. The rate of strikers was down to 36.5% from 46.3% on the first day on January 19.
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SUD Rail’s Erik Meyer remains “persuaded” that a renewable strike “will make this government bend”but the railway workers do not want to go on strike without being followed by other mobilized sectors, he noted, without giving a date.
For its part, the intersyndicale of representative organizations at the RATP again called for a strike on Tuesday 7 and Saturday 11 February against the pension reform, following the watchword of the eight main French unions, launched on Tuesday 31 January at the evening.
