The strike of railway workers, who wish to put pressure on management before a meeting on bonuses linked to the Olympic Games, risks having a strong impact on Tuesday for users of the RER and suburban trains in Ile-de-France operated by the SNCF. It is far from being the only corporation to mobilize in the run-up to the event planned for this summer.
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At the SNCF, in Paris airports, but also in schools, several strike movements are expected to be very strong on Tuesday May 21 in Ile-de-France. This mobilization is first of all a new round of the standoff between the unions and the government in the run-up to the Olympic Games. Two months before the opening of the competition, certain corporations are taking the opportunity to increase the pressure in the hope of obtaining a small extension.
The railway workers are mobilizing on the eve of a conclusive meeting on the bonuses allocated to agents mobilized during the Games. As a result, commuter and RER train traffic is “very disturbed” Tuesday. Same mechanics for Paris Airports staff whose unions are demanding a “homogeneous gratification“for all agents, volunteers or not, operational or not, who will work “from July 8 to September 15”. Only the strike in Parisian after-school services, particularly the canteens, is unrelated to the context of the Olympics.
The government is unable to quell these demands, perhaps precisely because it has already made significant efforts. It is legitimate for staff who will have to cope with an increase in activity, and sometimes even postpone their vacation due to the Olympics, to claim and obtain compensation. For two months, the State, and sometimes local authorities, have been quite receptive. Place Beauvau has promised substantial bonuses to the police who will be overstretched. Air traffic controllers got raises. Without forgetting the railway workers who concluded a generous agreement with the management of the SNCF which unravels the effects of the pension reform for early departures.
We are seeing a sort of snowball effect. Each compensation obtained by one category encourages another to claim in turn. Two strike notices, which cover the entire duration of the Games, are giving the government and Paris City Hall a cold sweat: those filed with the RATP and with the garbage collectors. This training phenomenon may seem quite logical. It also illustrates the deterioration of social dialogue which encourages certain unions to make a strike a prerequisite for negotiation. And the weakening of the government which gives the impression of managing the salary scales of public agents on a day-to-day basis.
