Great Western Coffee Shop

Big accidents apart, I generally post things from France if I think there is some scope for comparison, or a parallel with what happens on the FGW home patch. I rather hope that's not true in this case.

The magazine Le Point put a story on line on Wednesday (18/6/14)  (http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/quand-l-alcool-coule-a-flots-a-la-sncf-les-usagers-trinquent-18-06-2014-1837208_23.php) about some kind of celebration in a major signalling control centre west of Paris - involving those on duty at the time -  that involved a lot of highly alcoholic punch. There is a very limited secretly-filmed video, but the sound track is what really counts. The article suggests that there was a near miss in signalling terms as a result, though the jargon used makes it hard to tell if that's real or just journalism.

The story also said their source reported this to management, and not much was done, but he later lost his job after failing a promotion exam (which looks like a pretext). Subsequently he has gone public on it, citing his safety concerns. Then, as reported a day later (http://www.lepoint.fr/societe/cheminots-ivres-dans-un-poste-d-aiguillage-la-suite-18-06-2014-1837440_23.php), SNCF announced that they are holding an enquiry - though they gave the date of the event as February 2013, when it was really this year.

So far this has been referred to elsewhere in French media, though no more than that, and as far as I can see there is nothing in English.

I thought I'd see if I could find what happened about this. There were some more reports from September/November 2014, saying that eight signallers found to have misbehaved, and a maximum of two days suspension (unpaid) was imposed on two of them. The whistle-blower had been dismissed long before, and his going public was (as is not unusual) a kind of revengeretaliation. A year ago he was taking his case to a tribunal - but for discrimination due to his religion (Muslim). I can't see what the outcome of that was.

One reason for looking was to see what the union reaction was. And guess what - CGT, SUD-Rail, and Unsa called for a one-day strike (24 September 2014) to support those "unjustly disciplined". The press reports said that they had got off lightly, as evidence of management being dictated to by the unions. And the CDFT - a union with little or no SNCF membership - said much the same. The strike call, affecting two lines out of St. Lazare, was moderately supported but also criticised from within the CGT at least.