Could the four-day week change the situation and build loyalty among RATP employees?
To better meet the expectations of its current employees and attract new ones, the company worked for a year with union organizations on quality of life and working conditions.
“
Our turnover is very low with around 1,000 resignations per year
- out of 45,000 within the parent company, Epic.
It is lower than that of the entire market but it has a tendency to increase and we decided to work on this subject
,” explains Jean Aghulon, RATP HR director.
The agreement signed by three representative trade union organizations (FO, CFE CGC, Unsa) for three years initially concerns an experiment with a four-day week.
Since January 18, 170 volunteers from metro lines 5,7,9 and RER B have been testing a new work organization.
Station and station agents as well as controllers, whose work schedule is usually five or six days of work followed by three days or two days of rest in cycles of 42 days, increase to four days worked followed by two days off.
“
In this context, we are not increasing the daily working time
,” specifies Mireille Majerczyk, director of multimodal services and spaces (SEM).
Supervisory and inspection agents can work 4 days of work and 3 days of rest.
The daily working time then increases from 7:15 to 8:30.
They can also opt for the first formula without increasing working hours.
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5,000 agents potentially affected
An initial assessment of this experiment should be drawn up in May to decide whether to extend it until October or extend it to other services.
Ultimately, if this pace of work was retained, it could concern 5,000 RATP agents.
The agreement signed by the three trade union organizations also concerns housing for employees whose home in the Paris region is sometimes very far from their place of work.
The RATP plans to facilitate access to social housing for 860 families in 2024 and to increase this number to 1,200 families in 2027. The number of nursery places close to home must also be doubled, from 40 to 70 places for employees with young children who work on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays.
Furthermore, the premises dedicated to employees of around ten terminals must be renovated.
Another measure this time relating to arduousness in maintenance workshops, exoskeletons must be deployed to prevent workplace accidents.
Finally, RATP is setting up training programs for local managers in order to improve social dialogue.
Management also notes that it must be more “
inclusive of women
”.
Of Epic's 45,000 employees, around 20% are women.
Actions against harassment, violence and discrimination must also be widespread.