Rail strike to continue as no agreement reached

The spontaneous strike by French-speaking rail personnel that broke out on Wednesday will continue into Friday as no agreement on the labour conditions was reached between the unions and rail companies SNCB and Infrabel.

The workers are protesting a decision by management to change how it calculates credit days –days off that rail personnel receive in compensation for a longer working week. Management wants to count actual working days as the basis for credit days; at present sick days and holidays count towards credit days. The change affects all 34,000 railway employees.

So far the strike has mainly affected Wallonia, and Brussels to a lesser extent, but, as time goes on, the effect will be more widely felt in Flanders. Only about half of all trains were running on the Ostend-Brussels and Brussels-Antwerp lines, while only one in three trains serving Herentals, Aarschot and Lier were running. Trains coming into Antwerp and Leuven pass through Wallonia, where the entire network was down. Those trains that did run were overcrowded.

“If we don't hear anything concrete, the action will go ahead,” said Michel Abdissi of the French-speaking socialist union CGSP Cheminots.

“We'll be getting back together tomorrow to try to find a solution,” said his Flemish colleague Ludo Sempels of ACOD Spoor. In the meantime nothing would change on the ground, he said.

Luc Piens, of the Christian union ACV, stressed that the talks were constructive. “We haven't called for a strike, and we’re not doing so now,” he said. “There has been a reaction from staff, and we understand that. The important thing now is to get out of this situation.”

The public transport user group TreinTramBus reacted angrily to the action today, which was unannounced in advance. “Students, working people and other passengers are once more being taken hostage, without even having had the time to look for alternatives,” their spokesperson said. “Again, the unions have taken aim at the wrong target; the passengers affected are in no way responsible for this or any other conflict between rail unions and management.”

There may well be grounds for complaint, the group said, but it was “unacceptable” that passengers alone should have to pay the price. Passengers are advised to check the SNCB website or SNCB accounts on Twitter or Facebook for updated information.

Photo: Nicolas Maeterlinck/BELGA