Lyon (Rhône), special correspondent.
Make no mistake: it is not because the CGT and SUD have lifted their strike notice on the TGV South-East axis this weekend that the railway workers have lowered their arms. On Friday, a hundred of them demonstrated in Lyon in front of the headquarters of the regional management of the SNCF, at the Part-Dieu station, to remind their employer that, on wages as on jobs, the account is not there. In the smoke of merguez, the CGT flags flutter in the wind while conversations are rife between network agents, administrative and mobile staff, on the demands that unite them. “There were different notices this weekend, some have been lifted, others not. While some progress has already been made, for example 148 recruitments for TER in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes – which despite everything remains insufficient -, on the network part, there remains a real problem of jobs. And everywhere, the problem of wages remains: what has been obtained for the TGV are bonuses that t allow the holidays to pass, but that does not resolve the question “, explains Laurent Saint-Léger, secretary of the CGT railway sector in Lyon.
The repercussions of subcontracting on rail safety
“We are told 5% decrease in staff over three years at the national level while the lack of jobs is glaring”, confirms Franck Rambaud, secretary of the equipment union in Saint-Germain-au-Mont-d’Or. “The SNCF compensates by delegating more and more the maintenance of the network to subcontractors, but this has consequences for rail safety. When we see the results of certain private projects, we have to go behind because of poor workmanship ”, points to the trade unionist. “Wages have been frozen for almost nine years. And hiring wages are below the minimum wage. Some spend nights or get paid for their holidays instead of taking them to earn a little more ”, he laments.
Natacha Ferigoule, 29, is one of those railway workers who emerge below the minimum wage. Shunting agent at Perrache station for three years, the young woman, among the last hired to the status, only reaches the minimum wage amount thanks to compensatory bonuses. “We do a very physical job where we hang up and take down cars, we work in three-shifts, at night, on Sundays and on public holidays, but we are part of the smaller qualifications”, she specifies. “Before, we could evolve, and there were many aspects of the statute which compensated for the low wages which no longer exist today”, she denounces. Result: as for all minimum wage earners, Natacha is experiencing difficulties in finding accommodation and food, and inflation weighs particularly heavily on the young woman, who has done odd jobs before finding a stability that she hoped would be more prosperous at home. SNCF.
“We are not given the means to do our job well”
But even executives are beginning to voice their dissatisfaction with the wage freeze, which increasingly looks like an ice age. ” It took a long time to be able to discuss this issue with executives, who felt that they had not too much to complain about until then. But, this year, we finally managed to discuss it: they are aware that we are not paid enough for what we do, especially when we look at an equivalent job in the private sector, and that we suffer the increase in the cost of living ”, underlines Aurelia Diop, elected CGT and executive in the purchasing department of SNCF. On the issue of employment too, things get stuck in the administration. “Even if our working conditions are not the same as those of the agents who work in stations, the pattern remains the same: we are not given the means to do our job well. At a time of opening up to competition, it is particularly worrying that we can no longer provide quality work ”, regrets the railway worker, who thinks that this breakage of trades owes nothing to chance.“Management ensures that we are not competitive, especially as it competes with itself by opening subsidiaries”, she recalls.
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