EU AND FRENCH GOVERNMENT BLAMED FOR SEAFRANCE COLLAPSE

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2012 :: RMTnews 10 A s part of the Road Freight organising campaign, the union produced a questionnaire for all relevant members to gather information to help plan the campaign. To encourage members to return questionnaires all returned forms were entered into a draw with the first three drawn out receiving £50 worth of RMT gear. The winners, picked by assistant general secretary Mick Cash at the Road Freight Liaison Committee meeting in the boardroom at Unity House, were Howard John Aspinall, DHL Coventry; S V Ford, Freightliner Heavy Haul, Crewe Bedford House and Darren Sutton, Owner Driver at City Link Shrewsbury. The union aims to visit road-freight depots to recruit new members and find reps to build the strength and organisation of the union to improve its ability to represent and service members. Mick Cash thanked all those who took the time to fill in the questionnaire and return them to RMT. “The information you have provided will be put to good use,” he said. F rench unions have slammed the European Commission, the French government and the country’s national rail group (SNCF) for the liquidation of Calais- Dover operator SeaFrance, writes Jeff Apter in Paris. The Paris commercial court rejected a co- operative venture backed by the northern branch of the CFDT ratings’ union due to insufficient financial backing, the only plan before it. The cross Channel operator employed directly 880 people in France and 130 in Dover. Hundreds of other indirect jobs are at stake in the Calais area. Previously, the EC’s competition authority had refused various refinancing and restructuring plans presented by the SNCF, SeaFrance’s 100 per cent owner that historically has been responsible for the Calais – Dover sea link. The powerful CGT rail union accused it of abandoning SeaFrance’s cross-Channel maritime route to promote Eurotunnel that takes SNCF’s passenger and freight trains, and said management had accepted without a fight the European Commission’s rejection of its SeaFrance survival plans. France’s government has come under fire for doing nothing to save SeaFrance and its workforce until the court’s decision. The CFDT ratings’ union was also criticised, including by its own TUC, for “not having acted honourably” to save jobs. It was slammed for previously refusing to consider the plan of France-based channel operator Louis Dreyfus Armateurs (LDA) and Denmark’s DFDS to save 640 jobs and two ferries under the French flag. Just a day after SeaFrance’s liquidation and months before this April’s presidential election, French transport minister Nathalie Kosciuko-Morizet in a hastily arranged visit to Calais said the government’s aim was to save a maximum number of jobs. She said President Sarkozy had asked the SNCF to provide jobs to 500 SeaFrance employees, but mostly not in the Calais area or in the maritime sector. She said that redundancy payments for SeaFrance workers would be over the legal maximum and could be used to invest in the co-operative in a possible agreement with other investors. The minister also said LDA and DFDS were now offering to employ 300 French seafarers – half the number of its previous offer - and take two French-flagged ferries. LDA immediately confirmed it was in the running to take over the Calais-Dover link. Marc Sagot, the head of the CGT union at SeaFrance doubted the SNCF’s offer, saying that two previous SeaFrance redundancy plans concerning 800 people in the last three years had provided only 15 jobs. His union had never believed in the viability of the co-operative’s plan and, in the absence of European Commission, SNCF and government action, had backed the plan presented by LDA and DFDS. Meanwhile, despite the liquidation of SeaFrance, a French Calais-Dover operation is still a possibility. The Paris commercial court appointed a mediator to save as many jobs as possible and sell the SNCF subsidiary’s assets to pay off its debts. Following SeaFrance’s demise, in addition to the latest LDA/DFDS offer, talks on the future of a Calais-Dover operation continue with Eurotunnel, which could take “51%-100%” of the operator. Further private plans to buy what is left of the publicly owned operator could be forthcoming. EU AND FRENCH GOVERNMENT BLAMED FOR SEAFRANCE COLLAPSE WINNERS: Mick Cash with conference secretary Andy Hill and conference president Pete Daniels in the Unity House boardroom with the three winning questionnaire forms. ROAD FREIGHT ORGANISING CAMPAIGN QUESTIONNAIRE