The four representative unions of the SNCF signed an agreement with management on Monday on the end of the careers of railway workers, which makes it possible to avert the threat of a new strike by controllers during the May bridges.
After the CGT-Cheminots, the Unsa-Ferroviaire and the CFDT-Cheminots last week, Sud-Rail announced this Monday its intention to sign this agreement after consultation with its members, a rare unanimity within the public railway group.
The agreement provides, among other things, for an improvement in the early retirement system, in particular for railway workers who have held positions of proven arduousness.
“Compensate” for pension reform
The latter, which includes drivers, will be able to begin an “early cessation of activity” 30 months before their retirement with 15 months worked paid at 100% and 15 months not worked paid at 75%.
For controllers, the system is even more advantageous with a cessation of activity spread over 36 months including 18 months not worked paid at 75%.
The agreement makes it possible to “partially offset the harmful effects of the pension reform,” Sud-Rail federal secretary Erik Meyer told AFP. Union members overwhelmingly voted in favor of a signature.
No call for strike
As a result, Sud-Rail decided not to call a strike in May, as the union threatened to do after the first warning shot of the controllers’ strike in the middle of the school holiday weekend in February. .
The informal collective bringing together the controllers, the ASCT National Collective (CNA), also indicated that it would not call for mobilization. Sud had filed a notice for the entire month of May to influence the negotiations on the end of careers, initially planned for later in the year but brought forward to defuse the controllers’ conflict.
A signature from all the social partners on such an important subject is very rare at SNCF, according to the railway group’s unions. For the CFDT-Cheminots, this “marks the first act of the social progress platform » wanted by Jean-Pierre Farandou and presented in February to respond to the controllers’ strike.
Other provisions in the agreement include end-of-career part-time work, paid 10% more than the time actually worked. Management also proposed the creation of an additional seniority level to improve the remuneration of railway workers at the end of their career.
