“Black Monday” announced at RATP will not take place

• The strike call launched by RATP unions on Monday should be little followed, the government announced on Sunday.
• This weak mobilization confirms a “breathlessness of the movement” which is unlikely to resume with new strikes, according to Rémi Bourguignon, specialist in social dialogue.
• According to this professor from the University of Paris Est Créteil, transport blockages have not in fact demonstrated their effectiveness despite a record duration of the movement.

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In December and January, they managed to paralyze transport in Ile-de-France in order to protest against the pension reform. But while the government’s text is being examined in public session at the National Assembly this Monday, the mobilization of RATP and SNCF agents against the government project will not result in new disturbances.

In Parisian transport, this Monday, traffic difficulties should only concern lines 7, 6 and 13 (three trains out of four), 2 and 4 (two trains out of three), 12 (one train out of two) and 5 (one train out of four in the morning and one train out of three l ‘afternoon). As for the RER, bus lines and trams, they are not affected by the movement. “The renewable strike as we knew it at the start of December is effectively over,” Secretary of State for Transport Jean-Baptiste Djebbari said on BFMTV on Sunday.

However, last week, four RATP unions – Unsa traction, SUD, FO and Solidaires – had called to mark the occasion during the examination of the government project in the National Assembly Hemicycle . Without succeeding in producing the “black Monday” or the “dead day” expected. Rémi Bourguignon, professor of management science at the University of Paris Est Créteil, said the low number of strikers on Monday confirms a “shortage of mobilization” already well underway since January.

Exhausted strikers, demotivated teams

It will be difficult, according to this social dialogue specialist, to return to the massive strikes in December and early January. And for good reason, “the teams are exhausted and the movement, costly for the strikers, has not demonstrated its effectiveness, because nothing has changed on the government side,” notes Rémi Bourguignon. The disagreements at the RATP on the method to be adopted – strikes in transport at the call of Unsa traction this Monday against an inter-professional mobilization on Thursday February 20 for the CGT -, show tactical disagreements. “If blocking is something very effective, we also see its limit. The withdrawal slogan leaves no room for negotiation, “said the teacher.

Unable to restart strikes, union organizations continue the days of inter-professional mobilization. The tenth will take place thursday february 20, at the call of the CGT, Force Ouvrière, the FSU, the Union Solidaires as well as youth and student organizations. A method also criticized, but which constitutes another way of being present. “The unions are being negotiated as part of the funding conference and are awaiting concessions from the government. In such a context, there must be a balance of power, “says Rémi Bourguignon.

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