Toulouse. In front of Matabiau station, railway workers denounce the removal of sales counters
By Quentin Marais
Published on
This Wednesday, April 13, 2022, railway workers gathered in front of the forecourt of Matabiau station, in Toulouse. The removal of 50% sales counters in the enclosure are in their sights.
“What public service do we want? »
Around 10 a.m., around twenty paths met and took turns to express their dissatisfaction. One of them, Victor Imbault, works on the scale of Toulouse Matabiau. “The most obvious problem is the removal of 50% physical sales opportunities. So with the loss of the jobs that go with it…”
The CGT union goes longer. “The problem goes beyond that. That is to say, what public service do we want ? The railwayman sends a new message to the direction of the SNCF. “It uses the argument of digitization and the explosion of internet sales to eliminate counters. Or this argument does not satisfy us. »
“We are pushing people to digitize and to go online, and not the other way around. You have to know that this loss of counters will have collateral consequences on all of our businesses: on the ground handling agents, who are welcoming at the station. They could no longer provide pick-up inside the sales area, they will do so in the hall with conditions that are not secure. Since we know that these are potentially risky situations. Then, problems that will carry over to the trains…”
“These travelers will not come again”
According to the demonstrators, this measure will not only have consequences on their jobs. “We have no possibility of waiting space inside. Travelers will wait on the forecourt of the station, in winter, in the rain, and in summer, in full sun“, laments Victor Imbault.
It rewinds to the summer of 2021. “If we base ourselves on the waiting times that we had, that is to say about 45 minutes, imagine 45 minutes of waiting in these conditions, with travelers subject to bad weather…”
“Since we have reached the glass ceiling in terms of digitization, and we have a whole segment of the population who cannot buy online simply because they are not equipped or do not know how to do it, these are people who will no longer take the train because they consider that the service provided to them is not suitable. When these travelers have caught the rain once, they will no longer come. For the SNCF, it will be lost customers .”
The date of April 22 checked
This April 13, 2022, the railway workers have chosen to do “ a symbolic strike notice“. The reason, as well as the gathering place, have all been found: a new sales area has opened its doors the same day, just behind the Marengo SNCF metro exit.
“It’s a symbolic day,” says Victor Imbault. Who announce. “We are already planning around April 22, Where we will have a new strike notice with the infra-traffic, that is to say the colleagues in the signal boxes, who deal with the circulation of the trains. »
“They made a first notice last Monday where they reached more than 85% of the strikers, in Toulouse, on essentially employment issues. We know that we are missing, to function optimally, 45 signalmen. We are We are currently also fighting for employment and we are setting ourselves on the 22nd on their notice to unite and gather all of our demands.
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