Following the social movement of SNCF controllers, the government has declared its intention to bring in a new “framework” the strikers of transport.
by Eric Béziat
The law supervising the exercise of the right to strike in transport is now in the crosshairs of President Macron for not having been able to limit the effects of the social movement of SNCF controllers, which have deprived tens of thousands of French people Their trains during the Christmas weekend. The government therefore declared its intention to bring in a new “executive” the strikers of transport.
The current legal framework is based on a 2007 text (revised in 2012). He was wanted by President Sarkozy, to the chagrin of railway unions of the time. If it allowed users to no longer meet at the last minute, on the quays of stations, taken in a surprise strike, there is no shortage of dead angles and ambiguities. Starting with the way it is commonly called: the “minimum service”. In reality, contrary to a widespread idea, the “law on the continuity of public service in regular land transport of travelers” does not ensure a minimum level of transport.
The right to strike, guaranteed by the Constitution, is indeed incompatible with requisitions of transport staff on work stoppage, the only measure which would allow with certainty a minimum service. French law is content to oblige the parties to discuss before launching a social movement and above all to organize reliable information from users on strike days.
“square” notice
The text first planned a real small consultation marathon which can last from fifteen days to a month, or even more. Unions wishing to carry a strike movement file an immediate request for immediate consultation (DCI), and are received within three days. Ten days after the DCI, if the consultation has not given anything, the unions filed a notice for a strike five days later (in fact, it is more often two weeks). All this time is supposed to be used to achieve a negotiated solution before arriving at work stopping. In addition, each striking aspirant is required to declare himself at the latest forty-eight hours before the start of the movement: it is the individual declaration of intent or D2I. It allows the SNCF to estimate the number of non -strike railway workers with which the company will roll the trains and develop a reliable transport plan that it will have to announce to the public.
At SNCF, the mechanism is appreciated by management which has time to organize a reduced service and finally also unions, because it allows the strikers upstream through the number of D2Is. But there is no shortage of perverse effects. First, the SNCF may have an interest in maximizing the level of disturbance so as not to be taken in default by announcing departures of trains which will not be able to circulate in reality.
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