INTERNATIONAL NEWS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: june 2010 :: RMTnews 23 COURT FORCES EVEN MORE REDUNDANCIES AT SEAFRANCE The Paris Commercial court has compelled SeaFrance unions to accept the Calais–Dover operator’s new restructuring plans that are even harsher than the present arrangements. The court said if this were not accepted it would wind the company up. CFDT, the majority ratings union at SeaFrance, said it has had to back the new plan that it understands involves no straight dismissals. SeaFrance, a 100 per cent subsidiary of the French state- owned rail operator SNCF, was placed under court protection at its own request, freezing the operator’s present arrangements that were reluctantly signed by the unions after months of tough negotiations and industrial action resulting in 482 job losses in the 1,600 workforce. The new court- approved restructuring plan involves a further 243 job cuts, for a total of 725 redundancies. According to SeaFrance, most cuts will come from its onboard catering and general divisions and the operator will maintain its fleet of three car ferries and one all-freight vessel with the current 16-19 return trips daily. SeaFrance says more than 260 people had already applied for voluntary redundancy under the suspended plan while the CFDT puts the figure at 378. The operator must achieve a balanced budget, new financial arrangements and “adequate social consensus”. This could mean opening the company’s capital to a shareholder, including part privatisation and later selling off another vessel. ITALY PRIVATISES FERRIES Fintecna, the mother company of Italy’s national ferry group Tirrenia, one of the largest in Europe and that currently is being privatised, has released the name of 16 candidates seeking to take over the group’s ferry subsidiaries. The would-be buyers include seven investment funds and six operators, most of them Italian, including rapidly expanding operator Moby Lines, Minoan Lines and Superfast Ferries. Big Corsica, France-based privately- owned Corsica Ferries, is also bidding for the contract. Three of Tirrenia’s four regional subsidiaries are undergoing separate privatisation moves by Italian regions. Its remaining 25-vessel operation to Sardinia and Sicily is estimated to be worth some 855 million euros. IMF THROWS ROMANIAN RAIL WORKERS ONTO SCRAPHEAP Romania’s latest and severest austerity plan reduces the number of rail workers by 10,300 agreed by the government in an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and the European Union. Almost 6,400 of the axed jobs are at publicly owned rail freight operator CFR Marfa. The transport ministry has no plan to update or modernise the rail network while 90 per cent of its budget is going on the roads. The national rail company now employs only 65,000 people, down from 236,000 in 1990 as the result of a series of workforce reduction plans. Quality of service has tumbled with passenger trains running at an average speed of 48Km per hour and freight trains at 17.5 Km per hour. Meanwhile, 50,000 demonstrators at a rally in the capital, Bucharest slammed parliament’s IMF-backed austerity measures for a 25% cut in public service salaries and a 15% reduction in unemployment benefit and retirement pensions. PORTUGAL'S RAIL WORKERS FIGHT AUSTERITY Portuguese rail workers have been in the forefront of the huge public discontent with the Socialist Party government that has presided over spiralling unemployment, stagnating salaries, pensions and unemployment benefit, and European Union-inspired privatisation and cuts in public services. The most recent union-led demonstration brought 300,000 people onto the streets of Lisbon, the capital. Cuts in the rail industry include suspension of investment on the projected Lisbon-Porto high-speed train line and its extension to Vigo, Spain. GERMAN PASSENGER TRAIN COLLIDES WITH DERAILED FREIGHT TRAIN COLLISION: A passenger train lies wrecked next to freight cars after a collision in P eine earlier this month. A regional passenger train collided with a derailed freight train between Hannover and Braunschweig. The driver of the passenger train was seriously injured while seven people needed hospital treatment.