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French rail strike turning into major challenge for Macron

Thursday, 22 March 2018 9:47 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 22 March 2018 9:51 AM ]

A showdown between French railway workers and President Emmanuel Macron’s government grew more threatening on Tuesday after an internal labor union message suggested rail workers could paralyses services even outside of official strike days.

The message, attributed to a member of the hardline CGT union, urged colleagues to go beyond officially notified work stoppages announced for the coming months and cause network disruption on non-strike days as well.

“I find this to be extremely serious, I have never seen anything like it,” Guillaume Pepy, state-appointed chairman of the SNCF rail company, told RTL radio.

While the strikes by the SNCF’s rail workers are not scheduled to begin until next month, many of its staff have said they will join protests by public sector workers on Thursday in a show of solidarity against Macron's reforms.

That is expected to halve high-speed and regional rail services, despite it not being an official strike day. The already announced SNCF strikes are scheduled to run for three months from April 3, with two days of action each week.

All of four main unions representing rail workers are angered by the government's plans for change at highly indebted SNCF, including the abolition of job-for-life guarantees, automatic annual pay rises and generous early retirement.

Their protests are shaping up as perhaps the biggest challenge of Macron's presidency since he took office last May on a promise to deliver a raft of economic reforms, some of which already appear to have had a positive impact on growth.

(Source: Reuters)

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