Tuesday, join members of ATU 689 at the French Embassy on their 20th day striking against French company Keolis.
Tuesday, January 30
1:00 PM
French Embassy
4101 Reservoir Road NW, Washington, DC
Learn more about the strike and Keolis:
Keolis' parent company, SNCF Rail, is controlled by the French government. Therefore, the Union will urge the French Government to stop Keolis from further breaking labor law, bargaining in bad faith, and refusing to give its employees a fair and dignified contract.
In April 2021, Keolis first took over the operation of Loudoun County’s transit service after submitting the lowest bid among all companies vying to win the contract. At that time, Keolis refused to recognize the existence of the Union in the workplace and did not adopt the union contract that was already in place. Keolis unilaterally slashed benefits like retirement and health insurance and began to impose a number of cuts on the workforce, such as the elimination of a weekly guarantee of work hours.
Keolis forced the workers to hold another union election to recertify the bargaining unit. In April of 2022, Loudoun County Transit workers voted 95% in favor of the Union, confirming that they continue to be represented by the ATU. Since then, Keolis has been delaying progress at the bargaining table by continuing to violate federal labor law at a staggering pace, with the National Labor Relations Board having found merit to at least 4 different Unfair Labor Practice Charges against Keolis in Loudoun County.
After months of stalling and bad faith negotiations by Keolis, the workers officially began a strike in the early morning of Wednesday, January 11. On Thursday, January 12, Keolis returned to the bargaining table that presented workers with proposals for wages and benefits that were below peer agencies throughout the metro Washington DC area. When representatives rejected the insulting offer that Keolis deemed its "last, best, and final", the Company refused to set further dates for bargaining.
