The railway unions are showing their divisions

© Reuters. THE RAILWAY UNIONS ARE SHOWING THEIR DIVISIONS

PARIS (Reuters) – The railway unions have spread Wednesday their differences over the future of the movement to strike against the reform of the railway sector, threatening for some to break the unity which reigns from the beginning of the conflict on 3 April.

The CGT, CFDT, UNSA and Sud-Rail were meeting for a new meeting on the future of the intermittent strike initially announced to last until 28 June. The climate, however, is particularly tense between the four organizations.

Sud Rail and CGT want to a hardening of the movement, while the CFDT advocated a truce in the strike during the week of the bachelor. The UNSA has not yet been officially pronounced.

Southern Rail announced that he “did not see the interest of a federal-to-federal” if the CFDT maintained its appeal in solo on Tuesday.

“We want you out of there, today, we rather speak of putting pressure on the government, it speaks rather to win the withdrawal of this reform”, declared its federal secretary, Bruno Poncet, while the meeting was taking place.

The UNSA has accused, for its part, the CFDT to put the other unions in “door-to-fake”. She reproached him for his flip-flopping on the subject of the truce, while it had made this proposal at the last meeting inter.

“We always had this willingness to work until the end of the conflict in inter. Today, it is clear that some have taken a different path,” said the secretary-general of the UNSA Railway, Roger Dillenseger, at the time of return to the meeting.

Dozens of strikers gathered in front of the premises of the SNCF, which hosts this meeting, in the tenth arrondissement of Paris, to express their fears of a possible stop of the movement. Some have attempted to force the entrance of the building.

“We do not loose nothing,” said Anasse Kazib, member South rail, megaphone in hand.

The CGT has made it known Tuesday that it intended to propose new dates of release.

The deputies were preparing Wednesday to vote on the draft law on the reform of the national Assembly adopted by the mixed joint commission (CMP) on Monday. The senators will vote to turn the text on Thursday, putting an end to the legislative process.

“Those who want to believe that this reform is a forfeiture of the social dialogue, we have responded by including in the text, without questioning the principles of the reform, the proposals made by the trade unions from the consultation”, said the minister of Transport just prior to the vote.

“This reform will profoundly change and reshape our railway system, this public service to which the French are all attached,” added Elizabeth Terminal.

(Arthur Connan with Caroline Pailliez and Elizabeth Pineau, edited by Yves Clarisse)