There's no fuel problems in Charente Maritime. As far as the strikes are concerned, the French unions have for years, successfully fought off any attempt to change their working conditions. A TGV train driver retires at 50. If he has at least 15 years service, he will have been earning 6000€ per month when employed. Upon retirement, he receives a pension of 4000€ per month - tax free. On top of this, he, his wife, children, parents and siblings travel at free or vastly reduced rates. He and his family travel First class free. He gets subsidised electricity. Were he to work in the electricity industry, it would be free. A college lecturer earns 6000 per month. After tax, he takes home 2400€. Fair it ain't and the government has decided to stop it.

Interesting comments . Are some of you living in France to benefit from a certain lifestyle and benefits you do not get in your home country ?
if it is the case, it is a bit hypocritical no ?

Strake : And where is the problem ? jealousy perhaps ? Anyway the strikes in this topic are not about trains but ATC.
The reasons for next week ATC strike are not about the new labour law causing disruptions and demonstrations in the Country.
For those interested the reasons of the strike are are :
Freeze of recruitment for last 8 years despite raise of traffic of 5% /year .
No more investment in new technologyin last 10 years .
Better retirement conditions.

Source : SNCTA : Le Blog des Contrôleurs

MrDK : Where did you get this from ? I did live through 1981 and the aftermath and I know my facts which are quite different . It took months to rebuild the system to 80% not days and it took 20 years to rebuild normal working relations within the FAA. Some facilities 25 years later were still forcing controllers on 6 days on/one off and as a result No-one cooperated with the FAA in that period and this is why you still have basically an old 1980 ATC technical system in the US. Nobody in his right mind today wants to repeat this . Definitively not in the US.

"Where did you get this from ?"

Reagan fires 11000 striking air traffic controllers Aug. 5, 1981 - Politico

I jumped to conclusion a bit saying "days" the article reports: "To the chagrin of the strikers, the FAA’s contingency plans worked. Some 3,000 supervisors joined 2,000 nonstriking controllers and 900 military controllers in manning airport towers. Before long, about 80 percent of flights were operating normally. Air freight remained virtually unaffected.".

God forbid people try to protect their pay and conditions. I never understand the willingness of some to defend a corporate entity trampling all over its employees, over those said people.

Unions are important. No individual can negotiate with a corporate monolith fairly, unions give some (but still nowhere near) balance to the equation.

Go and look at the middle East forum and see what they all think of how management treat them. Ironically many of them are probably anti-union in their home country, so I guess you reap what you sow.

Anyway it's generally useless debating any of this with anyone who's been brainwashed to believe socialism is a dirty word just to protect a system designed for 1% of the population. Hint, where are living standards highest? Scandinavia.

Agreed, and as ATC watcher has mentioned the French ATC action is separate from wider unrest.

However the more widespread problems France is having at the moment is being driven by those leading the CGT. Their actions and motives may well be much more politically motivated and IMHO there are parallels with what happened in the early 70's in the UK...and we know what happened to unions and union membership after that.

Union influence is often a good thing but it needs to be used wisely.

In 1973 the French military replaced striking civil controllers with devastating results.

Nantes mid air collision

**** Unions are important. No individual can negotiate with a corporate monolith fairly, unions give some (but still nowhere near) balance to the equation. ****

When I moved to the US I earned $1000/month (1983).
20 years later I managed $12,000 per month with a fortune 500.
No one but I got me there.
Fell on my ass later, but blame I no one.

Employees should be valued on their own merit and not on the ability to be collectively destructive.

One only has to wonder why so few unions have not started their own corporations, being it an airline, a shipping company, an automobile manufacture, etc.

Fine words, DK; but NOT the whole story !

Well, before that, and after that, there has been lots of devastating accidents while genuine ATC guys were doing the job.

So are you saying if everyone just tried a bit harder they'd all be earning $12,000 a more then?

Believe it or not, not everyone wants to work for a fortune 500 company - many of us can think of nothing worse. Many people choose to do something they are passionate about and they feel has value. I'm sure there are many smarter people in atc making less than a lot of less competent people in fortune 500 companies.

All the evidence shows the USA is probably the least merit based economy in the developed world. I'm not saying it applies to you, but it's been shown time and time again, most people in well paid positions are NOT there on merit, though obviously they convince themselves they are. Social immobility means it doesn't matter how hard a lot of people try, the cards are so stacked against them it becomes night on impossible to improve. And of course the US economy is built on corporations paying a lot of people a pittance, however many smart people there are.

People generally just want to be valued, and not endlessly be the ones getting shafted when management screws up and needs to save money, or just protect its own dividend. Management of course never diminishes it's own terms, unions at least provide a means of neogitiation, otherwise a worker has nobe, which seems like market failure to me.

It's really sad how some people support the race the bottom, aren't we supposed to be progressing as a civilisation? Capitalists love talking about Go and do some, bit at the same time think people should put up with less?

Very true but I think the incidence rate is much lower when genuine ATC guys are doing the job.

From the local Media: GVA receives its aviation fuel from France by pipeline.

*** Believe it or not, not everyone wants to work for a fortune 500 company - many of us can think of nothing worse ***

That would include Delta Air Lines, American Airlines Group, United Continental Holdings, Southwest Airlines, JetBlue Airways and Alaska Air Group.

As you well know, that wasn't the point I was making. It is the fact that these incredibly over-generous work practises for 'special' and government employed (including ATC) staff are paid for by other workers which is unfair and has to be stopped.