Crippling Strikes Hit Europe
LONDON (AFP/Reuters) -- Train passengers in Britain faced severe disruption on Saturday, with only one in five services running as railway workers staged another walkout over wages.
People were urged to “only travel by train if absolutely necessary on Saturday” as 40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at Network Rail and 15 train operating companies took action demanding higher pay and better working conditions.
Those affected include thousands of football fans travelling to support their teams.
Railway workers are demanding wage increases to keep pace with decades-high inflation amid a cost-of-living crisis.
The sector has spearheaded a wave of industrial action in recent months.
Tens of thousands of staff in various industries -- from the postal and legal systems to ports and telecommunications -- have also gone on strike across Britain since the summer.
RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch urged the government to “unshackle” the railway companies and allow them to negotiate a deal with the unions.
Railway workers staged another walkout on Wednesday and also took strike action last Saturday, resulting in only 11 percent of trains running nationwide.
Some parts of the country were left without any services.
The strikes come as workers face a huge hike in energy prices, rising interest rates and food costs. They have been the sector’s biggest stoppages in decades with more expected.
Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government on Wednesday vowed to take on “militant unions”, characterizing them as part of an “anti-growth coalition” holding the country back.
Sabotage Halts Rail
Traffic in Germany
Attackers cut cables vital for the rail network in two places causing a near three-hour halt to all rail traffic in northern Germany on Saturday morning, in what authorities called an act of sabotage without identifying who might be responsible.
The federal police has launched an investigation into the incident, Transport Minister Volker Wissing told a news conference. “It is clear that this was a targeted and malicious action,” he said.
The disruption immediately raised alarm bells after NATO and the European Union last month stressed the need to protect critical infrastructure after what they called acts of “sabotage” on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
“We can’t say much at the moment, it is too early,” said a security
source who declined to be named. The source said an intensive investigation into the incident had begun and a there were a variety of possible reasons for it, ranging from simple cable theft - which was frequent at the moment - to a targeted attack.
Neither the federal police or the interior ministry immediately replied to requests for comment.
State rail operator Deutsche Bahn (DB) said in a statement: “Due to sabotage on cables that are indispensable for rail traffic, Deutsche Bahn had to stop rail traffic in the north this morning for nearly three hours.”
DB had earlier given the cause of the network disruption as a technical problem with radio communications. Rail traffic was still patchy on Saturday afternoon after being restored, it said, warning of train cancellations and delays.
The disruptions affected rail services through the states of Lower Saxony and Schlewsig-Holstein as well as the city states of Bremen and Hamburg, with a knock-on effect to international rail journeys to Denmark and the Netherlands.
Queues rapidly built up at mainline stations including Berlin and Hanover as departure boards showed many services being delayed or canceled. Station staff were seen attempting to give advice to passengers as the delays lengthened.
France Struggles With
Refinery Strikes
France will not ration petrol for drivers or restrict the use of service stations in response to supply problems caused by refinery strikes, Environment Minister Christophe Bechu said on Saturday.
A walkout by CGT trade union members at TotalEnergies - mainly over pay - has disrupted operations at two refineries and two storage facilities, and two Exxon Mobil refineries have faced similar problems since Sept. 20.
According to Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher, who travelled to the northern Hauts-de-France region hardest hit by the outages on Friday, roughly one in five petrol stations are not receiving usual supplies.
But in some areas, also including the Ile-de-France region around Paris, the share is much higher.
An interactive map compiled by the website mon-essence.fr, where more than 100,000 users reported outages in recent days according to its operator, a large majority of the petrol stations in and around Paris were marked out of service.
“The waiting line will take you at least one-and-a-half hours or two”, Jean Galibert, a real estate credit agent, said as he entered the last stretch of the 700-metre tailback in front of a Paris service station on his scooter.
“This situation right behind me reflects the state of France. We’re struggling”, said Franck Chang, another customer.
The strikes have reduced France’s total refinery output by over 60%, according to Reuters calculations.
“Nothing has moved on, the strikes continued this morning,” a CGT representative at TotalEnergies told Reuters as the strikes headed into their 11th day.
He said the union would make a new appeal on Saturday to TotalEnergies Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne to open negotiations ahead of formal wage talks in November, and that the union had not given up on any of its demands.
A CGT representative at Exxon Mobil also said the strikes at two of the U.S. company’s two French refineries were continuing on Saturday morning and would likely last throughout the weekend, with new talks with management planned on Monday.