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Rail strike advanced notification (non UK countries)

Posted by (California USA) on

This morning I saw the post ** How far in advance are Rail strikes usually announced?** in regard to England. It just so happens that we are narrowing down our extra 11 days from a 30 day trip and we’re checking time and distances to our final location in Germany to the Munich airport, Herrsching to MUC directly on the S8. It should be a direct 1.5 hour trip but today I couldn’t check the route because there is a strike for 5 days.

I’m now wondering if Germany, and I may as well throw our other two countries of France and Switzerland in there, have a set number of days where transportation strikes are announced in advance? If we had some warning we could most likely make alternate plans, something we’ve had experience with during these past few years. I like the UKs timeline of 14 days, it gives you time to pivot. Do these other 2 countries, Germany and/or France have rules like this? I don’t recall ever hearing about Swiss strikes.

Posted by
9571 posts

Hi Mona -- for France, the one limitation is that individual union members must notify the union whether they plan to participate in a planned strike 48 hours ahead of the start of the strike.

In practice, this means that the union needs to file their strike notice earlier than 48 hours ahead, but there is no minimum requirement. Nothing like the number of required days that England has.

In France the unions get the participation plans from the members 48 hours, and turn that over to the company (airline, airport authority, rail company, whatever) which then plans out what services it thinks it can offer based on who will be out and who will be working. So then you usually know a day ahead of time or so if your planned train or flight or whatever is affected.

However: train drivers and metro drivers in particular can absent themselves from work immediately if they feel in danger. So sometimes if there is a scary incident of someone threatening or hurting a driver, other drivers will understandably basically stage a big impromptu walkout. That doesn't happen very frequently, but does happen every once in a while.

Posted by
3952 posts

Thanks for the info Kim. We will use our SNFC app and keep our eyes open. We will have access to a car where we are staying in La Roche sur Foron, FR but we plan to use the trains in this town for some nice day trips too. When we move on to Germany, Lindau then Herrsching, we will rely on trains and have made our final stay in a town with SBahn and bus service in to Munich for our flight.

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