myIn France, threats of rail transport strikes loom at the end of the year, and the first movement began on November 21. They are fueled by concerns about employment and working conditions in the face of the dismantling of SNCF freight transport, an additional touch of a progressive privatization of the railway.
It is true that foreign experiences, particularly in the United States, are not at all reassuring. Rail transport is one of the examples of the upheaval of the sectors born from the first industrial revolutions, which shows that, in the last twenty years, productivity increases have not been limited only to high-tech sectors. behind the word “Precisely scheduled railway operation”In a few years, American private companies have gone from a radial organization around “hubs” (sorting centers) to a system of flexible routes with dock-to-dock loading.
By eliminating load rerouting maneuvers within the same platform on different trains heading to a final destination, companies could lengthen trains, reduce unloading staff, eliminate downtime for train drivers, and reduce operational staff. . Since 2012, benefits have increased, hours worked have decreased by a third, but working conditions have deteriorated (intensification, flexibility suffered) and the fear that this financial race will result, as in the case of Boeing, in important safety violations. (“Tracking Productivity on Long-Distance Railroads”, Brian Chansky and Michael Schultz, Beyond the numbers, No. 13/2, 2024).
The sirens of the worst
This has led railway unions to present a series of demands for 2022: minimum staff per train, salary increases, payment for sick leave. The employer’s counterproposal was massively rejected by the union base, and a strike was looming at the end of 2022, with the risk of increasing difficulties in supply chains after the pandemic.
In 1916, faced with such a threat, as the United States prepared to enter the war, President Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) and Congress gave up the eight-hour day demanded by railroad workers. But the Biden-Harris administration has taken an entirely different path. He called on Congress to pass a bipartisan law to ratify the employers’ proposal and block any strike. The Railroad Workers United responded immediately: “This is a defining moment for Joe Biden’s legacy. It will go down in history as one of the greatest disappointments in labor history. » Uniquely, more than 500 historians wrote to Biden to recall the ripple effect of big decisions regarding transportation workers and denounce the historic mistake of the Biden-Harris administration.
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