The French rail company, the SNCF, has been found guilty of discrimination, and has been ordered to pay over 150 million euros in damages to over 800 Moroccan rail workers, reports RFI.
This decision is a “financial and moral reparation” for decades of wrongdoing, a defence lawyer told RFI. The workers, referred to as Chibanis, were recruited in the 1960s and ‘70s as contract workers, which meant they did not have the same benefits as full employees.
“This is a big victory because there is finally an official, legal recognition of their status as rail workers,” says lawyer Clélie De Lesquen, who represented the 832 Moroccans at the French Prud'Hommes labour court.
About 2,000 Chibanis were recruited in the 1960s and '70s as rail workers, but as a public company, the SNCF could technically only hire French people. (This is still the case today, though it is extended to European citizens.)
But because the foreigners were useful, the company found a way around the rule, by hiring them as contract workers, often recruiting them directly from Morocco.
Antoine Math, a researcher with the French Institute for Economic and Social Research (Ires) and an activist for foreigners’ rights in France, explains that these contracts did not have the same conditions as full-time SNCF staff.
“These people, who sometimes worked 30 or 40 years, have been left with bad conditions: flat careers with no promotions; exclusion from the possibility of advancement or training; very low wages. And now, very bad pensions,” he said.