Employees of the state railway company SNCF on Friday, October 18, declared an “unforeseen” strike. In Paris, traffic on the RER lines of trains almost completely stopped, and in the Alpes-Maritimes department all commuter trains were canceled in the morning.
The railroad workers cannot say how long the interruptions in transport will last: SNCF employees do not go to work without warning their superiors in advance.
From the point of view of legislation, the social movement that interrupted the work of the French railways on Friday is not a strike. SNCF employees took advantage of the right not to go to work because of the “serious” danger to their health: in their opinion, the company was not able to provide them with proper working conditions.
The reason for the strike was the collision of a commuter train with a truck on Wednesday, October 16. As a result of the incident, 11 people were injured. The driver who suffered a leg injury had to cope alone with the consequences of the accident. There were no other employees of the railway company on board: SNCF, in order to save money, refused the constant presence of controllers in all trains. Participants in the strike demand that the company abandon this decision.
Unlike the classic strike, which union representatives are required to notify the company at least five calendar days in advance, SNCF employees will not warn anyone in advance of their refusal to go to work. For this reason, passengers learn about train outages a few minutes before departure. According to authorities, in France in the morning there were about a quarter of suburban trains. Whether TGV high-speed trains will be affected is unknown.
Secretary of State for Transport Jean-Baptiste Jebbari condemned the spontaneous strike of railway workers. According to him, the unions took advantage of the accident in order to defend their “political” position.