About 150 bus lines cut and a very limited tram service.
The strike movement launched by the RATP unions was very popular this Friday in the Paris region.
Gathered at the call of all the representative unions (CGT, FO, Unsa, CFE-CGC), around 500 machinists demonstrated in front of the RATP headquarters, near the Gare de Lyon (Paris, 12th arrondissement).
“The mobilization on the buses is greater than in 2019 (during the strikes for the pension reform)”, welcomed Pierre Yaghlekdjian, CGT union representative on the surface network.
In its depot in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, "we arrive at 90% of striking machinists", he assures.
According to management, one out of two machinists was on strike on the bus and tram side, but the level of mobilization remained much lower in the other trades compared to the last day of the strike on February 18.
Almost normal traffic on the metros and RER
If metros and RER were running almost normally, around 30% of bus lines were at a standstill with only one in two buses circulating on the rest of the network.
The trams were even more disrupted with the T8 completely stopped and a greatly reduced service on the other seven lines (traffic only at peak times or shortened service route).
At issue: the management's plan to modify the working conditions and working hours of the 15,000 bus drivers and 1,000 tram drivers to integrate into the “territorial social framework” (CST).
The latter will impose the same rules of organization and working hours on all companies from January 1, 2025, the date of the end of the RATP monopoly on the surface network.
However, there are only three months left before the entry into force of this new agreement, which is still the subject of tough negotiations which should be concluded in April.
Competitiveness objective
“For a long time, employees thought it was going to be done in 2024, so the deadline was far off.
There, it becomes concrete, ”explains the secretary general of the CGT-RATP Bertrand Hammache.
The objective is to “put on the table a deal which (…) is + work more to earn a little more +”, recalled at the beginning of March the boss of the RATP, Catherine Guillouard.
Currently, machinists work a little less than 35 hours per week because they are forced to “driving in dense areas”.
By getting as close as possible to the CST, the RATP and its subsidiary CAP Ile-de-France hope to be in working order to win as many contracts as possible among the twelve batches of buses subject to calls for tenders which are also eyeing Keolis and Transdev.
Six days off lost
For the moment, it is planned to make the machinists work 40 minutes more per day and to eliminate six days of annual leave in exchange for a salary increase of around 70 euros per month, say the unions.
For HRD Jean Agulhon, this figure is “very far from the last one that we communicated to the trade unions”.
What the management is proposing, “is the equivalent of an extra month of work”, says Hani Labidi, FO general secretary for the surface network.
"With the working conditions we currently have, the box made 200 million euros in profit" in 2021, he insists.
Like his colleagues from other unions, he welcomed the mobilization, even if it did not reach the level of that of February 18 on wages.
This time, the non-mobilization of the metro and the RER limited the mess and avoided a new black Friday in the Paris region.
But the trade unions do not want to stop there and are preparing new days of action.
“The fight must be unitary”, launched an elected CGT at the microphone for the rail.
"Anyway, we're all going to be there."
The opening to competition for the metro and the RER is scheduled for 2040.
