SOCIAL MOVEMENT: Chatillon SNCF maintenance centre employees demand payment for their strike days
Disturbances are to be expected if you take the TGV Atlantique line on Tuesday. Only 34% of the trains will be in circulation because of a strike of 200 agents specialized in the maintenance in suburbs of Paris, said Monday the management of the SNCF. Traffic was already disrupted Monday, with 30% of TGV Atlantique at the start.
Monday has already been very disrupted on this network, where only 30% of high-speed trains were in circulation during the school holidays. “We will increase to 34%” Tuesday with a “slight improvement” on the services of Bordeaux and Nantes, detailed the SNCF.
An “epidermal” reaction
Since Monday, 200 agents are on strike in the technicentre of Châtillon (Hauts-de-Seine), an establishment that deals with the maintenance of TGV Atlantique trains. Employees express their “disagreement over a project to adjust their working conditions”. However, this project was “withdrawn from Tuesday” but “we are in a situation of blockage because the agents ask us the payment of days of strike, which is totally unthinkable,” said the director of TGV Atlantic, Gwendoline Cazenave.
“We continue to dialogue”, “progress” was made on the working conditions component “but the payment of strike days is not possible”, she insisted, lamenting a “situation “,” which penalizes the customers “. According to Julien Troccaz, federal secretary of the SUD-Rail union who called for the strike and spoke earlier in the week, the railway workers protested against “a challenge to working conditions by management without any consultation” with the staff.
The site management had announced the cancellation of compensatory breaks for evening and weekend work, said Erik Meyer, also federal secretary of SUD-Rail. “The agents had an epidermal reaction, at the height of the violence of the announcements of the management,” he had judged.
