Transport: the bill to limit strikes over certain periods examined in the Senate this Tuesday

School holidays, public holidays: a bill is being examined Tuesday in the Senate to limit strikes in transport over certain periods, a heated debate in perspective three months before the Olympic Games. Necessary measures to “ensure continuity of service”, or “deliberate attacks on the right to strike”? The discussion promises to be heated between the left, fiercely opposed to the text, and the senatorial majority of the right and center, determined to pass it.

“We must sound the alarm” in the face of “excessive and repeated” strikes, underlines the leader of the centrist senators Hervé Marseille, author of this bill tabled in February in the midst of the mobilization of SNCF controllers who had disrupted the vacation departures of at least 150,000 travelers. The text from the head of the UDI, largely expanded last week in committee at the initiative of the right, grants the government a quota of 30 days per year during which “public transport service personnel” would be deprived of their rights strike, with a limit of 7 days in a row per blackout period. These protected days would only concern certain periods: school holidays, public holidays, elections and referendums as well as events of “major importance”. And the ban on striking would be limited only to peak hours and to personnel essential to the operation of the service.

“We are very attached to this fundamental right which is the right to strike, but it is clear that it is today being misused and used in an abusive manner,” says rapporteur Philippe Tabarot (Les Républicains). The latter also proposes to extend the deadline for declaring strikers from 48 to 72 hours, to increase the “minimum level of service” during peak hours with a requisition process under strict conditions, as well as a system for the lapse of certain notices not followed up, to combat “dormant notices” which sometimes last for several months. Another proposal from the senatorial right: require employees wishing to strike to join the movement from the start of their service and not during the day. A way to fight against “59-minute strikes”, less costly for the employee but sources, according to the right, of great disorganization.

This debate was reopened during the February school holidays, in particular by the widely commented declaration of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who deplored a "form of habit" to strike during certain periods and affirmed that if "the strike is a right », “working is a duty”. But the government has clarified that it will oppose this text, which risks complicating its inclusion on the agenda of the National Assembly. “There is a problem of constitutionality,” noted Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete on Sud Radio, for whom “prioritizing vacations” amounts to “neglecting everyday mobility.”

The entire left has also planned to oppose this text as a whole, via numerous deletion amendments and other rejection motions. “It’s an epidermal text to wave a red rag before the Olympic Games,” alarms the socialist Olivier Jacquin, burned by the very heated debates that took place in committee last week. He denounces the “considerably violent” remarks of the rapporteur Philippe Tabarot. The latter had accused the left of being “blinded by an ideology which is no longer relevant”. “This text has only one use, it is to blow on the embers on the eve of the Olympics, in the context of tensions that we are experiencing in public transport,” despairs the ecologist Jacques Fernique, regretting that the bill does not rather aim at “the fluidity and quality of social dialogue”.

Although the initial bill included the airline sector, it was ultimately excluded, while two cabin crew unions called a strike on April 15 and 16 to protest against this text, before lifting their notice. In a press release, the CGT transports for its part castigated the “outpouring of populism” of the senatorial majority, accusing it of wanting to “better serve the interests of capital against those of agents and users of the public transport service”.