Word: railings
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...RAIL STRIKE...
...jobs and join nation-wide protests against government plans to slash nearly 23,000 public sector jobs next year. Those walkouts greatly broadened the front opposing government reform initiated Nov. 14 by transport and utility workers, whose ongoing strikes against the tightening of their pension schemes have caused most rail travel throughout France to be canceled, and have brought suburban train, subway, and bus service to a crawl. Tuesday's movement even found echo in the private sector, where Air France employees resumed strikes begun in late October to demand better pay. That mass action was set to be followed...
...current tussle, which halted train travel throughout France and paralyzed Paris in recent days, stems from government plans to raise the retirement age for public-sector employees such as rail and utility workers. That's something successive governments have attempted repeatedly since the '80s, only to be thwarted by union-led opposition. Sarkozy's determination to storm the one bastion labor has successfully defended from creeping reform reflects his electoral promise to "rupture" with France's musty status quo. By launching that assault just six months into his five-year term, Sarkozy grasps how vital a victory in reforming public...
...fuel, that would be the place to start. We need to create new forms of transportation fuels as well as reduce the quantity of goods and people moved by cars and large trucks. If a high percentage of products now transported by large trucks were shifted to the global rail system, an efficiency savings of three- to tenfold could be realized. If those goods could be shipped over water rather than rail, even greater efficiencies would be realized. While such changes will take time, they have to succeed...
...strikes Wednesday by rail, utility and certain public sector employees are expected to cause cancellation of around 90% of national and regional train service, while cities like Paris anticipate almost no municipal transport at all. It probably won't stop there either. Unions at state rail company SNCF expect a probable extension of Wednesday's stoppages to seriously disrupt transportation through the weekend - and perhaps beyond: Labor leaders may seek to bridge their movement to link up with next week's demonstrations by civil service employees protesting nearly 23,000 job cuts in the public sector planned...