Train strike calendar

This is massive. This is messy. This is the calendar of the train strike from April to June. Two days strike followed by three days work. And the cycle continues like this. 

It looks like my work calendar when I was working at the Seagate factory during one school vacation. The shift of 12 hours was three days work, two days rest, followed by two days work and then three days rest.

Not only SNCF is protesting, unions from other big companies are joining. Seb had to fly for his work on tuesday the 3rd and was informed through a SMS 24 hours before that AirFrance cancelled the flight. The message was sent on Easter Monday at 6am and Seb woke up quickly to book his ticket with EasyJet. 

Since I work from home and only go office once a week, this period should not been too difficult for me. However, it would be such a pain for workers taking public transport to work. I hope the unions and the government manage to settle their differences real soon.

So french and so singaporean

1. Riots, riots again.
2. Strikes, strikes non-stop.
3. Flooding in Singapore a common sight.

1. Grenoble, France. An armed robber was killed by the police during action. He had fired at the police first. What happened next was beyond me. Riots! In the suburbs Grenoble, people started to attack police vehicles and set cars on fire. The girlfriend of the killed robber had filed a complaint for the murder of her partner.

Saint-Aignan, France. A man in a car crashed thru' a police roadblock and was shot dead. Again, there were riots. Cars were set on fire, a city hall was set on fire, police station and shops were attacked.

Lost lives are never easy to accept especially for families and friends of the deceased. However, there is no need for material destructions. There are other canals of venting. I am not even sure how many of those trouble makers are real friends of the deceased.

2. Paris, France. Air traffic controllers were on strike 2 days ago. This had interrupted many holiday makers who were travelling during this summer holiday period. They were on strike over a plan to unify European airspace. This would affect their job status as public servants.

Pharmaciens were on strike a few weeks ago to protest against . . . . I had no idea and did not look up. Just heard it over the radio.

More strikes are forecasted for September. Students are going on strike due to increase charges for university entries; unions are organising massive strikes against the retirement age of 62.

3. Singapore, Singapore. It was amazing watching the videos of Orchard Road being flooded. Not once but a few times in recent months. In the videos, people were just patiently watching the rain and flowing water at the entrance of shopping malls. How could this happen in Singapore, I asked. Like everyone else. Yet, the Minister Mentor said that "Singaporeans expect everything to be perfect ". Who won't when the govt has a perfect income?

If he had said that to the French, would there be another riot or strike?

Strike and Snow

It is the usual period of strike.
RER A, the regional train most used by Parisiens with almost 1 million of passagers each day has been on strike since 8 days. During peak hours, there are only 1 train out of 2 and for off-peak hours, no train at all.
I am only slightly affected since I come to work by car and I leave home really early to start work at 8am.

Last week, there was a day where I took 1h45mins to reach office due to an accident. Horrible. Seb and I work not far from each other. When I left home in a hurry and kissed my son goodbye, Seb was preparing the milk bottle. While I was on the road, he fed the baby, dressed him up and brought him to the child care center; came back home to get his scooter and zoomed off. After an hour and half in the car stuck in traffic, Seb zoomed pass me on his scooter and even waved at me. That is the advantage of having a scooter in Paris!

This morning, I left earlier for work as other train lines are going on strike and snow is expected. I came to office at a record timing of 30mins. Cool. Usually, it takes me 45mins. Along the way, it snows. It is still snowing. Maybe we will have a white christmas this year. Yipee!

PS: a post done in a hurry for my own memory sake.

Massive strike

Today is France's black thursday. There are massive strikes in the public sectors. Public transports are greatly reduced. Air controllers are on strike leading to 30% of flights cancelled. Seb left yesterday evening for Italy as he had a meeting today. He was afraid that he could not leave for Italy this morning. I do hope that his return flight tonight takes off as scheduled.

As for me, I took a day off to avoid the traffic jam. My colleague had to take a day off to take care of her toddler as the child care center will be closed. The staff are not on strike but most of them come to work by public transport and would have difficulty getting to work in time and getting home after work.

Teachers are on strike too. Schools are closed and parents have to find alternative child care for the day. Judges are on strike too. I have a registered letter to collect from the post but I decided not to go anywhere today cos La Poste is on strike too!

I am not greatly affected by the strike except that I used up my last day off and had to wait until end of Feb to accumulate new ones. I felt that it is good that people can protest. Unlike in singapore where even two people who manifested were rounded up by the police. Maybe one day when I am greatly affected by the strikes would I change my mind.

Neverending strike?

I am in office at 7am this morning. I am not an early person but I had no choice. France is crippled by transport strike since a week. On this tuesday, almost everyone is on strike. Teachers, judges, lawyers, France telecom staff, electricity company workers, university students, Air France stewards and hostesses and most important of all, public transport workers. 1 out of 5 metros are working. Suburbs trains are greatly reduced. Millions of commuters in Paris and its suburbs resorted to cars, bicycles or walking. There were 250 km of traffic jams reported last week. Now you know why I left home at 6.20am. To avoid the 1.5 hours I took when we left at 7.30am yesterday.

Last week, I was in Helsinki and did not face the strike. While the temperature there was less than 1 degree, the indoors were always warm. I even found the hotel room too hot. It was nice to have a little snow. The main street in Helsinki had a hot water pipe running underneath it to prevent it from freezing and being slippery during winter. Most of the time, we walked through shopping center and underground tunnel to get from the hotel to the client's office. I was not out in the cold that much. From the month of November, cars in Finland had to change their tyres for the winter. By 1 December, all cars must have their winter tyres fitted.

For the moment, my working trip is confined to Finland. As for Seb, he was in South Africa just a week before me and it was 25 degrees there. When we compared our photos, it was amusing to see the differences. One of green trees and lovely swimming pool with bright sunshine.The other of beautiful lights with a snowing background.

Strike three and maybe more days to come

The general transport strike started on thursday. Since it was announced a few days earlier, people organised themselves for alternate transport. Some took a day off to avoid the traffic mess.

On thursday, things were quite okay. There was no long queue at the train stations and metro stations. There was no major traffic jams. People used bicycles, car pool or walked. I walked to work on thursday. It was 3 km away and it took me 35 mins. After work, my colleague sent me home on his scooter. That was peaceful thursday.

However, the union decided to prolong the strike as their demands were not met. On friday, Paris was a mess. People could not take another day off. There were crowds waiting for metro and trains. Mostly 1 out of 3 trains or metro were functionning. RER A and RER B were totally down. I drove to work on friday as I had to visit our new apartment after work. What a bad day to do that. Driving to work was okay. The return trip from my new apartment to home took me more than 1 hour. Everyone was breaking traffic rules. Traffic was really slow and cars just cut lanes and driving on the road shoulders. The usual journey would take me 30mins.

Seb had it no easier as well. He had to travel to Belgium on wed evening instead of thursday since there was no guarante that TGV would work on thrusday. When he was returning on friday, his train was cancelled and he had to take the one before. That was still not too bad. At Gare du Nord, the queue for taxi was so long that he decided to take a bus until Gare Pont Cardinet and then took a train back to Becon des Bruyères, our station. Long story short cos' there were other bothering details. In brief, he reached home late.

And yesterday, the strike continued. :( Seb left for Boston in the morning and I had an appointment at our new apartment. My kind renovation contractor sent me to the new apartment and I discussed about the remaining works to be done. After that, he left me and I was stranded. In the internet, the transport website updated about the situation and RER D was supposed to be working. At the train station, I waited patiently until someone told me that she had been waiting since 45 minutes. We both gave up waiting and tried to find an alternative. In the end, I took three buses to reach home and that took me 2 hours in total.

Today, I stayed at home. There were only one train every two hours to go Paris. Usually, there were four each hour. I chose to pack the boxes and prepare for our house moving.

I have been too busy to go into the details of the strike. But it seems that railway workers retirement age is at 55. The government had been trying to make them work longer. The government reasoned that this retirement plan was created long ago during the time of steam trains when it was a hard and dangerous work. Now, train drivers had an easier job and should work longer. As usual, no one can touch this group of workers. The union replied that their jobs were not easy. Their responbilities were great, they worked on irregular hours and their workloads were heavy.

I will keep a watch out on the news this evening. I guess there is a high chance that I would have to walk to work tomorrow. Do I mind the strike? It is a mix feeling. I am frustrated when I was in the traffic jam. But it was my fault due to my lousy organisation. I am glad that people can manifest and go on strike. Freedom to the people! Something that we will never experience in Singapore.

Strike strike strike

Yesterday, SNCF went on strike. I depend on SNCF train to bring me from Becon to Saint Lazare. From Saint Lazare, I will take the Metro train to my work place. As notice was given a day in advance, I made arrangement with my manager to come pick me up. All was beautiful. The return home trip was a little bit unpleasant as I had to take the Metro line 3 until the end and walked 15 mins in the cold back to Becon. Still it was not as bad as 3 weeks ago when there was a similar strike and I had to walk in the rain and cold. With strong wind, umbrellas are not of much use here.

This morning, the radio announced that things were more or less back in normal. 3 out of 4 trains were in operations. My foot! I reached Becon train station at 8.15am. There was a train at Quai A at 8.18am. Following that, two trains were cancelled. And the next one would be at 8.53am. At Becon, I had a choice of taking the direct train that stopped at Saint Lazare or a train that stopped at 3 stations before reaching Saint Lazare. For the direct train at Quai C, two trains were cancelled and things were no better than at Quai A. I managed to squeeze my way up on the train of 8.18am. We were really packed sardines. Once reaching Saint Lazare, there were a lot of people. Just imagine the narrow streets in Chinatown on the eve of Chinese New Year. You really had to be patient and take one step forward at a time. But in this case, everyone was just in a hurry to get to their offices.

I would say that SNCF strike is not as bad as a Metro strike. If the Metro goes on strike, it would be impossible for me to reach office. We little people depend on the public transport. Buy a car and drive to work? With traffic jams everywhere, this is not a good solution as well. Car is meant for weekend getaways. Not for driving in Paris.

I can only hope that tomorrow, everything will be beautiful. Smooth journey, I pray.

CPE, the new reason for the riots here

Less than 6 months and France is in the news for the same reason. There are riots again. It started as peaceful demonstrations by students and ended up with hooligans burning cars and rioting. CNN was first at hand to show the amercians footage of burning cars. I spoke to mom and she asked if everything is fine here. Everything is fine. It's a wonder how the TV news reports out of proportion the situation. They usually make a small news spectacular with sensational headlines, music and some seconds of disturbing footage.

Once again, I had to explain. These riots had nothing in connection with last Nov's riots. There are only a few. The First Minister recently set up a new contract for the first employment. It is known as CPE (Contrat Premiere Embauche); Contract of the first employment. This is meant for young job seekers below 26 years old. With CPE, you can be sacked anytime without any reason in your first 2 years of so-called probation. What horror!

Well, you have to understand the economy in France. This is not a simple right or wrong contract. There are about 10% of unemployment in France and a high percentage of youths could not find jobs after graduation. So, the right-wing government decided to create this contract to combat this issue.

Of course, employers are very happy as France's strict labour law makes it really difficult to sack an employee. There must be valid justifications that are quantitative. Just saying that this employee is under performing and he has to go is not enough. You will have to compensate him. However, there may be a risk that large companies will employ youths and sack them before their two years contract is up.

So, on the other side of the fence are the students and labour unions. Think about it, after many years of studies, you ended up with a CPE job. You cannot commit into projects like buying a house, planning the future etc. One, you have no idea if you will still have your job after two years as your company can replace you without reason in order to employ someone younger than you. Cost saving for the company? Also, how can you borrow money from a bank if you want to buy a house? Will banks be willing to lend money to someone with a two years contract? The risk that the person cannot repay the loan if he is sack is too high.

And there you are, students protesting in the streets, at schools. Who's side are you on? I guess it depends if you are under 26 or if you are a patron of an enterprise. For me, I am neither. I prefer to sit on the fence.

For further reading, check out on BBC. But I can't say if the reporting is fair. From what I read, they seem to be interviewing more of the bosses than the under 26.