FRENCH RAIL WORKERS

French rail workers have been in the forefront of the fight to defend their industry and against continuing high unemployment across the country. A nationwide day of action in October saw 1.3 million workers take to the streets in 150 demonstrations. These protests, which are set to grow, pinpoint the demands of the powerful rail unions against cuts in jobs and services and European Union demands to open passenger and freight rail to competition. Public opinion polls showed almost that almost three- quarters of the public sympathised with the aims of the strikes. Action to defend a decent public service and the jobs and conditions of rail workers is led by the rail union affiliated to the CGT union umbrella organisation. By far the biggest of France’s eight railway unions, it represents half of all railway workers on the basis of elections for works council representatives, for which all rail employees vote. Didier Le Reste, CGT rail union general secretary since 1999, was recently labelled by France’s best-selling newspaper, Ouest France, as “rightly or wrongly the man who industrially can paralyse France” - quite an achievement for an orphan who set up his first union branch at 18 before becoming a railway worker in 1976. FIGHTING PRIVATISATION Mr Le Reste told RMT News that the biggest problem for his members is the threat to the SNCF as a public service. This, he emphasises, is because of inadequate investment levels, the effect of the French conservative government’s austerity policies and European Union directives on opening rail services to competition. “These three elements are destroying the railways as a public service and adversely affecting employment and salaries. “But they are meeting resistance from rail unions and are the reasons behind this year’s rail strikes,” he says. Football-loving railwayman Le Reste is the latest in a long line of militant rail union leaders. “October 4 was the fifth successful 24-hour stoppage for France’s railway unions so far this year – and may not be the last. “We came out to defend jobs and rail workers’ purchasing power and fight cuts to the railways as a public service. This also means fighting the European Union’s policy to open passenger traffic to competition,” he says. WINNING And the successful stoppage was the first since union action compelled the conservative government to sign a dispute warning agreement, which defeated its attempt to impose minimum service requirements during disputes. “This has resulted in commuters being less inconvenienced as the SNCF was able to inform the travelling public on the anticipated state of traffic through newspaper advertisements 48 hours before the strike,” he points out. Opinion polls show that 74 per cent of the public supported or sympathised with the rail strike movement’s aims. He believes that unions are angry that the SNCF is making its employees pay for its bid to return to profit this year. “We lost over 8,000 jobs between 2002 and 2004 and SNCF’s 2005 budget included slashing more than 3,000 jobs this year. “Stoppages this year have successfully saved 800 jobs but the SNCF still wants to reduce the present workforce of 170,000,” he says. Meanwhile, rail unions have demanded an early meeting with management on jobs and pay. The SNCF announced recently an unexpectedly high 2004 operating profit of about £80 million after a £140 million loss in 2003. RESISTING BRUSSELS Didier Le Reste says that his union’s actions against the EU directives demanding rail liberalisation and privatisation are a “continuation of our strong opposition to the discredited European Constitution” which was rejected by the French people in the May 29 referendum. “The union fought for rejection because the constitution favoured big business and offered insufficient guarantees for workers’ and union rights and the defence of public services,” he said. Union pressure made France the last country to cave in to EU directives to open its freight network to competition following the European Commission’s total liberalisation of international rail freight by January 1 2006, and of national rail freight a year later. In June, the first entirely privately run freight train since nationalisation in 1937 started CGT members blocked the first privately-run freight train on the network since 1937 from operating for four hours until riot police attacked protesters in June. RMTnews :: december 2005 26 Jeff Apter talks to French CGT rail workers’ union general secretary Didier le Reste in Paris about the fight against government and EU policies of rail privatisation FRENCH RAIL WORKERS DEFEND THEIR INDUSTRY Didier le Reste