# Railway workers and border deaths. Moral dilemmas and the relational dimension of decision-making

Annalisa Lendaro

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Annalisa Lendaro. Railway workers and border deaths. Moral dilemmas and the relational dimension of decision-making. Political Research Exchange, 2025, 7 (1), 10.1080/2474736X.2025.2575209. hal-05425501

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# Railway workers & border deaths. Moral dilemmas and the relational dimension of decision-making

Annalisa Lendaro

**To cite this article:** Annalisa Lendaro (2025) Railway workers & border deaths. Moral dilemmas and the relational dimension of decision-making, Political Research Exchange, 7:1, 2575209, DOI: 10.1080/2474736X.2025.2575209

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This article belongs to Special Collection: Searching the Power of Discretion.
The Implementation of Migration Policies Through Relational Approaches

# Railway workers & border deaths. Moral dilemmas and the relational dimension of decision-making

Annalisa Lendaro

UTOPI, CNRS, Toulouse, France

## ABSTRACT

This article examines the overlooked role of Railway Workers (RWs) in implementing border control policies. Train drivers and ticket inspectors, normally responsible for passenger safety and ticket compliance, find themselves operating on cross-border routes where French police conduct identity checks and return irregularized migrants to Italy — operations linked to rising deaths at the border. Without clear guidance from their employer beyond the vague instruction to “facilitate police work,” RWs face moral uncertainty and workplace tension. They must reconcile professional ethics of care and fairness with the coercive demands of border enforcement. The article explores how they navigate these dilemmas when encountering migrants attempting to cross the border by train. Drawing on scholarship on Street-Level Bureaucrats and border control, the paper argues that RWs become de facto agents deciding who crosses the border—tasks that exceed their formal responsibilities. Two case studies illustrate this dynamic: a ticket inspector engaging in relational resistance to aid migrants, and a driver managing moral responsibility in the face of potential fatalities. The article concludes that border control is collective work involving multiple frontline actors, including those not formally tasked with migration control, whose everyday practices nonetheless shape migrants’ trajectories and survival.

## KEYWORDS

Border control policies;
migrant deaths; railway
workers; moral dilemmas;
decision-making

## Introduction

This article aims to shed light on the role played by transport agents, in particular Railway Workers (RWs), in the implementation of border control policies. This group has been understudied in migration studies, and it deserves attention because it reveals the extent to which the implementation of public policies and local control mechanisms also relies on these agents, who interact daily with law enforcement and people on the move. Indeed, border control is neither a prerogative nor an official secondary responsibility of

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RWs. Whether they are responsible for driving the train or checking tickets, their professional ethics are based on the duty to ensure onboard safety for passengers, whom they must treat fairly, provided they hold a valid ticket. However, when they carry out their work on cross-border lines, such as those covering the area from Ventimiglia (Italy) to Nice (France), these RWs operate in the same spaces where French law enforcement authorities check and track irregularized migrants¹ with the aim of sending them back to Italy. Indeed, in anticipation of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in December 2015, and subsequently in response to the November 13, 2015 attacks in Paris, various measures aimed at strengthening domestic security and combating the terrorist threat included the suspension of internal free movement within the Schengen Area: since 2015 and more intensively from 2016 onwards, identity checks have been reinstated in a vast border zone, whose fulcrum is the Menton-Garavan railway station. Consequently, police officers conduct daily identity checks and pushbacks within RWs' traditional workspaces, such as trains and stations, thus contributing to the increase in border deaths (Cuttitta and Last 2020).

This situation, combined with the absence of specific instructions from their employer (the Société nationale des chemins de fer français – SNCF) concerning encounters with irregularized migrants, apart from the broad directive to 'facilitate police work', creates tensions and workplace distress for many RWs, whether they are driving the train or checking tickets. The empirical research conducted at the French-Italian border focuses on the moral dilemmas faced by RWs in connection with border control implementation. More specifically, the study focused on the nature and effects of these moral dilemmas on the practices of two professions, drivers and tickets' inspectors, when they must decide how to act in response to irregularized migrants attempting to cross the border by train.

While the literature on the discretionary power of street-level bureaucrats (SLB) involved in the design and implementation of migration policies is now extensive (for recent reviews see Borrelli, Johannesson, and Lindberg 2025, and the Introduction to this special Issue), transporters and RWs have not been specifically examined from the perspective of the discretion they must exercise in migration governance. This is not entirely surprising: on the one hand, they are not strictly speaking SLB, as they are not called upon to exercise discretionary power in making decisions on behalf of public institutions regarding potential beneficiaries' queries, nor do they represent the State, but rather, in the case of RW, a transport company whose majority shareholder is the French state; on the other hand, RWs' tasks are not intended to implement migration policies (as is the case for police officers or border guards), but to ensure the safety and equal treatment of travelers. As such, they can be possibly conceived as frontline workers called to contribute to the implementation of migration control policy when encountering migrants and police officers, but cannot be confused with other private actors dealing with the border regime, as NGOs or humanitarian staff, whose core expertise and tasks are directly connected to migration issues (Pallister-Wilkins 2017).

This paper has two main objectives: the first is to engage in discussion with the rich literature on the discretionary power of SLBs involved in the implementation of border control policies, in order to shed light on the place of these understudied agents within the border regime. The idea defended here is that they do not have strictly speaking discretionary power, but rather an imposed duty of discretionary decision-making about who can cross the border by train and at what conditions, that goes beyond
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their professional responsibilities and can place them in a conflicting position with their code of ethics. Indeed, some RWs experience this responsibility by normalizing it and exercise discretionary power in a way that closely resembles what has been extensively analysed in the literature; others perceive it as a burden that lies beyond their professional prerogatives, and the resulting moral dilemmas invite us to think of these discretionary decisions as something other than power in the strict sense of the term. The second is to illustrate the situations of encounters with irregularized migrants and police officers in which dilemmas typical of the two professions under study (drivers and tickets inspectors) emerge, as well as how and under what conditions these dilemmas are resolved in practice by the agents, though decisions about border-crossings. Among these conditions, I will emphasize the relational dimension of decision-making.

In the first section, I will introduce the specific organizational context of RWs at the SNCF, focusing on drivers and ticket inspectors operating at the French-Italian border. In the second, I will outline my theoretical framework, explaining how this contribution both engages with and extends existing literature on discretionary power of SLB and frontline workers of border policies implementation. The third section will present the empirical research and my methodological approach. In the fourth section I will focus on the case of a ticket inspector to illustrate the relational dimension of decision-making and to shed light on the social conditions enabling active resistance in support of irregularized migrants. The fifth section analyses the case of a driver, paying attention to the way she navigates moral dilemmas – particularly her efforts to avoid responsibility for fatalities – and to the consequences this has for decision-making about migrants’ border crossings. Finally, I will discuss the key findings of this study, and conclude with the political and moral issues they expose.

## The context of the fieldwork: a heated setting

The Alpes-Maritimes, a territory bordering Italy, has long been the scene of a 'border spectacle' (Cuttitta 2015; De Genova 2013), and a stronghold of right-wing politics², characterized by widespread dissatisfaction with migration, and this sentiment is echoed within the railway profession. Recent managerial reforms within SNCF (Champin, Finez, and Largier 2021, Lendaro 2024), combined with diverging RWs' positions on migration issues, have led to deep tensions that weaken work collectives and divide railway professions. SNCF management has often played on these divisions to implement structural changes that are detrimental to workers. For example, strongly reducing the number of ticket inspectors on regional lines (TER - Train Express Régional)³ has directly impacted the working conditions of drivers since 2019, as they are most of the time alone to guarantee safety and travelers management onboard; at the same time, the opening of the railway sector to competition from private transport companies for the management of large rail networks in the region has placed RWs in competition with one another. Unions have found themselves largely powerless. In this specific organizational context of staff reduction, management inertia, and relative union powerlessness, RWs are increasingly left alone to decide whether, under what conditions, and how to intervene with irregularized migrants during their working day.

For RWs on cross-border lines, additional challenges arise as they must adapt to situations constructed as migration' crises (Amigoni et al. 2021; Casella Colombeau 2020;
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Donadio 2021; ObsMigAM 2020), which directly impact their work. The tightening of police checks after the terrorist attacks in Paris and Nice makes border crossings more dangerous for irregulized migrants, leading to an increase in accidents and fatalities.⁴ Faced with these tragedies, many RWs work in a constant state of alert, frequently managing electrical breakdowns caused by irregularized migrants hiding near circuits, reporting their presence near the tracks, and intervening during accidents. The stress from these situations has led many RWs to accept the reinforcement of the police operations, which involves frequent and sometimes systematic checks at Ventimiglia station, Menton-Garavan station (the first French station), as well as increased police presence on trains. Since 2016, the prefecture of Alpes Maritimes and SNCF have explicitly instructed RWs to facilitate police work with the aim of avoiding train delays.

In 2017, unions, particularly the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), started publicly denouncing the deterioration of working conditions for RWs on cross-border lines. SNCF responded to workers' distress and union pressure with five main measures: distributing educational card games on railway risks in several languages between 2017 and 2018 in Ventimiglia, aimed at dissuading irregularized migrants from hiding in dangerous places; deciding in 2020 not to let the last evening train stay overnight in Ventimiglia to reduce the risk of migrants boarding and remaining until morning (the train now spends the night in Menton); reducing the dwell time of French trains in Ventimiglia between arrival and departure towards Menton; requiring drivers of these trains to open doors to passengers only five minutes before departure; and increasing the dwell time at Menton-Garavan station to facilitate police work without delaying the train, thereby avoiding passenger dissatisfaction. These measures have not resulted in a reduction of risks and accidents. As with any tightening of police' controls, the main consequence is that migrants seek to cross the border by taking greater risks: they climb onto the electrified roofs of wagons, cling to the cables connecting two carriages, or hide at the couplings at the front or rear of the train, or even in the electrical closets inside.

No explicit instructions are given by management⁵ to RWs on how to interact with migrants or respond to police inquiries about their presence onboard or near trains and stations. This lack of clarity creates a situation where the obligations and prohibitions for SNCF employees and police remain ambiguous. Daily interactions between RWs and police officers are sometimes tense, marked by irritation and conflicts between police and RWs, as well as between police officers and passengers, particularly migrants. Drivers and ticket inspectors regularly witness police interventions and interact directly with migrants, who sometimes ask for help or advice on hiding. Faced with the violence of the border regime and the inaction of SNCF management, some RWs have reached their limits. For example, Sally, a ticket inspector and CGT⁶ union member assigned to the VNGC line until 2017, expressed her frustration: 'I used to say to my boss: “I’m going to beat up a police officer; one day, I’ll get one”' (Sally, ticket inspector, May 2022). Although other colleagues share her annoyance, my interviewees generally feel they are in the minority in opposing the militarization of stations and trains.

Drivers and ticket inspectors have specific tasks, which expose them differently to migrants and police encounters, but also to specific discretionary decision-making (Buffat 2015). The first ones are responsible for the proper functioning of the machine and its mechanical and electrical components, its operation, and adherence to departure and arrival schedules. They must ensure onboard safety and pay close attention to
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compliance with technical instructions and protocols intended to reduce the risk of acci-
dents. For example, they must announce the train's arrival before each tunnel with several
horn blasts to minimize the risk of impact with people or animals near the tracks and
report any human presence too close to the rails via radio. These railway safety pro-
fessionals were not originally supposed to handle passenger relations. However, since
ticket inspectors were removed from TER trains in the Alpes-Maritimes starting in 2019,
they now find themselves alone on the trains and thus have to manage frequent problem-
matic situations on their own, ranging from delays and dealing with passenger dissatisfac-
tion to handling incidents such as accidents involving irregularized migrants.

Ticket inspectors are primarily responsible for ensuring that each passenger has a valid travel ticket and, when necessary, regularizing the passenger's situation. Before 2019, they also handled passenger relations by providing information about delays and connections and had safety-related duties concerning the equipment, such as ensuring the proper opening and closing of doors and checking the condition of restrooms. Most importantly, they were in direct communication with the train driver, giving a green signal at each station before departure to indicate that no more passengers needed to board or disembark. Since 2019, ticket inspectors have only been present on these cross-border TER lines as part of 'anti-fraud brigades.' With overall staffing reduced by more than 80%, the remaining inspectors now operate randomly, most of the time in groups of four, solely to check tickets. They no longer complete full trips on the line but instead make brief appearances on certain sections to regularize as many passengers as possible. Their interactions with train drivers are now extremely limited, and they have no more security tasks.

Concerning the encounters with irregularized migrants, train drivers often have to intervene in cases of electrical failures caused by the presence of one or more of them hiding on or outside the train or in the event of an accident involving one or more migrants walking along the railway tracks. Ticket inspectors are more directly in contact with migrants who board the train or attempt to hide on it. They may see them getting on at stations or, more rarely, be approached at the station or onboard by migrants seeking advice on where to hide. Both train drivers and ticket inspectors share the experience of being questioned by law enforcement at Menton-Garavan station, as officers regularly ask them if they have seen migrants board the train, how many, etc. Before 2019, ticket inspectors were logically the main point of contact for the police during operations; today, with the driver being alone, officers systematically address him or her to ask for information about irregularized migrants possibly hiding.

Their responses can vary, ranging from statements like 'My job is not to distinguish
between passengers with or without papers' to active collaboration with the police. In
any case, they must decide how to act both towards migrants and law enforcement. In
practice, they have to make discretionary decisions regarding the territorial control of
the border (van der Woude and van der Leun 2017). Specifically, they must decide on
the spot who can enter French territory by train and under what conditions (particularly
in terms of safety). This is not without dilemmas for everyone: for many RWs, collaborating
with the police regarding the presence of migrants on or near the train aligns with their
employer's directive to 'facilitate police work.' However, it also openly conflicts with some
of the core values of their professional ethics. By taking seriously the moral dilemmas
arising from the conflict between the obligation to carry out checks, on the one hand,
and deontological principles on the other, I aim to explain how relational decision-
<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>

making helps to elucidate why some agents choose to assist irregularized migrants, even at the risk of being sanctioned.

## Moral dilemmas and discretionary decisions: the relational dimension of decision-making

In this section, I first propose to engage in a dialogue with the scholarship on the discretionary power of SLBs, in particular on the decision-making of frontline workers in migration control, to highlight both the echoes and the differences with RWs. Secondly, the extensive academic work on SLB, and in particular the notion of ‘frontline discretion’, has shed light not so much on the extent of individual decision-makers’ room for maneuver, but rather on the organizational factors, power relations, and social interactions that explain the existence of patterns and regularities in discretionary decisions across time and space (Borrelli, Johannesson, and Lindberg 2025; Brodkin 2011; Hupe, Hill, and Buffat 2015; Pratt 1999). Starting from these contributions, I aim to extend the discussion on the relational conditions of the exercise of discretion in decision-making, by developing the idea that in the case of RWs this has not to be considered *per se* as a form of power⁷, but rather as a responsibility to decide something that have consequences for other persons or groups even if it exceeds one’s sphere of professional competence.

The duty of discretionary decision-making is at the heart of SLB' activity, as highlighted by Lipsky's pioneer work (Lipsky 1980). Indeed, the extensive literature on SLB has already analysed the practices of public agents and administrative officers (Dubois 2010; Evans and Harris 2004; Lipsky 1980) showing that the existence of laws and directives is insufficient to standardize their interpretation and application. Numerous empirical studies in the social sciences have demonstrated the importance of extra-legal factors and collective processes that influence discretionary decisions. These include work organization (Côté-Boucher 2016; Evans 2013; Feldman 1995), professional ethos (Evans 2011; Miaz 2019), power relations between interdependent actors (Darling 2022; Lemaire 2022), as well as individual career paths (Dubois 2010), and the delegation of responsibility (Guenebeaud 2019; Infantino 2017). These studies show that the strength of legal and procedural provisions and the autonomy of actors in decision-making are all relative. More specifically, diverse ‘routines’ (Heyman 1995) and the ‘practical knowledge’ (Infantino and Rea 2012) of agents involved in implementing migration policies have been studied across various geographical and organizational contexts, providing evidence of, on the one hand, the extent to which and why socio-political context influences the different outcomes of similar laws or policies, and on the other, how organizational issues impact the day-to-day decisions of SLB (Infantino 2019, 2023).

Discretionary decisions and moral dilemmas are also at the core of migration policy implementation studies focusing on frontline workers' practices and justifications (Affolter 2021; Alpes and Spire 2014; Eule et al. 2019; Gilboy 1991; Infantino and Sredanovic 2022; Weber 2003). Nevertheless, the most common category of frontline workers being studied through the lenses of discretionary power to decide who and at what conditions can cross the border is police officers and border guards (Borrelli, Johannesson, and Lindberg 2025). Despite their direct involvement in border control activities, RWs do not represent the State nor hold a mandate on migration issues. They are transporters
<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>

and, as such, cannot be hastily classified as SLB, nor as private frontline workers special-
ized in migration control (López-Sala and Godenau 2020), or as participants in insti-
tutional (Frowd 2017) or non-profit humanitarianism (Gerard and Weber 2019).

Among what RWs and SLB have in common there is discretionary decision-making, as they both have to make decisions – about railway’ safety process and law enforcement – being strongly influenced by individuals’ professional and bureaucratic habitus (Alpes and Spire 2014). Together with Miaz and Achermann (2021), I conceive discretion as a space for constrained decision-making, individually exercised within the limits imposed by the legal and regulatory framework, and the result of reputational stakes, organizational routines – sometimes informal – and social relations that shape individuals’ perceptions and behaviours (Miaz 2019). Miaz and Achermann emphasize the relational dimension of decision-making by showing that SLB involved in migrant detention operate within networks of relations, meaning their practices influence one another. In their case, magistrates’ decisions on the matter – and frontline officers’ anticipation of these decisions – shape the latter’s practices, which tend to align accordingly.

Nevertheless, implementation of border controls policies is not solely a bureaucratic
matter, and discretionary decision-making is not the exclusive domain of networks of
street-level public officers. More specifically, frontline non-state actors such as RWs, are
delegated inspection duties outside their core responsibilities, requiring them to make
discretionary decisions. As such, these decisions are often experienced as moral
burdens because dilemmas⁸ can arise due to conflicts between professional ethics and
the expected control practices involving collaboration with law enforcement. Indeed,
their primary domain of accountability concerns the strict application of railway safety
rules and procedures, which are meant to ensure the smooth progress of the journey
for both customers and professionals on and around the train. Their roles in no way
involve distinguishing between regular and irregular migrants or between nationals
and foreigners. Thus, the informal injunction to facilitate police work – one that is not
codified in SNCF’s internal regulations – resembles what Natter, Norman, and Stel
(2023) have called ‘strategic non-regulation’: through a *de facto* delegation of control
responsibilities and under the pretext of ensuring passenger safety, the State also shifts
part of its accountability for pushbacks, accidents and deaths at the border onto RWs. I
agree with the authors on the following point: strategic non-regulation is a key feature
of migration governance. Moreover, I suggest that this strategic non-regulation has a cas-
cading effect on non-State actors, such as RWs, who find themselves caught between
paradoxical injunctions in border zones.

Within this context, I argue that, as in the case of the Swiss bureaucrats studied by
Miaz and Achermann, the relational dimension of decision-making is fundamental to
understanding the practices of SNCF RWs on border crossings. Indeed, the following
sections will show that these practices vary depending on the social position of the
agent within their work environment and their involvement in professional networks
(and beyond) of support and allegiance. In particular, active solidarity practices
towards irregularized migrants primarily stem from complicity among colleagues,
which is increasingly undermined by the neoliberal transformations within SNCF that
individualize the agents' work.
<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

## Fieldwork and data

This contribution supports a specific methodological approach: to uncover the involvement of RWs in professional and personal networks of support and allegiance, as well as the emotional and moral support available to them, and to explore the dilemmas that accompany their decision-making about border crossings, empirical research cannot rely solely on the analysis of juridical and administrative documents or conducting interviews. The latter are crucial for gathering information about individual career paths, the history and place of each individual within their organization or group, and their reflective insights into the reasons behind their decisions and any resulting dilemmas. SNCF Documents' analysis is also important to understand formal limits to their latitude of maneuver. However, it would be naive to assume that every agent is able – or willing – to accurately describe their practices and the motivations behind them. Therefore, in this article, I argue that observing professional practices and contexts is an indispensable empirical approach for understanding the role that support and allegiance relations play in discretionary decision-making characterized by moral dilemmas.

To stay connected with people's experiences and practices, I conducted a qualitative survey (2020-2024) through observations and interviews, aiming to gather the opinions and experiences of RWs who work or have worked on the cross-border lines of the Alpes-Maritimes. The involvement of railway unions had a significant 'snowball' effect, as I did not encounter any RW who were fully compliant with police collaboration in all circumstances, nor were they openly hostile to irregularized migrants. Instead, I met RWs, most of whom were CGT union members, who were identified by their colleagues and friends as individuals sensitive to migration issues. Therefore, my sample is not representative of the general stance of RWs on migration issues.

I conducted sixty-three interviews with various participants, including regional union delegates (2), drivers (24), ticket inspectors (29), a station manager in Ventimiglia, Italian station agents in Ventimiglia (3), ticket sellers (4) in Menton, and a staff delegate who was a member of the CHSCT (Health, Safety, and Working Conditions Committee) until 2019. Among the sixty-three RWs interviewed, fourteen are currently on medical long-term leave, periodically on sick leave, or have left their jobs. Twenty-one of the sixty-three are women (four drivers, two ticket sellers, and the remaining are inspectors – seven of whom are on medical long-term leave). Three of these individuals became key interlocutors, as I conducted three interviews with each of them, one per year between 2021 and 2024.

I always allowed my interviewees to choose the interview location: most often, the RWs arranged to meet me in a café near the train station; in nine cases, I visited the interviewee's home, and in sixteen cases, we met at the union's office. Each discussion began with my presentation of the survey's objectives, allowing me to emphasize my interest in their memories, anecdotes, and feelings about their daily work lives. Throughout the interview, I encouraged them to talk about their family, educational, and professional backgrounds, the changes in their profession, their career plans, and their relationships with colleagues. This naturally led them to discuss how SNCF restructuring and the intensification of border controls had impacted their daily work. I then asked them to share memorable encounters, particularly with migrants and police officers (on trains, in stations, or
<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

elsewhere), professional situations where they faced difficulties, and any support that had
helped them.

With some of my contacts (8), I organized observation sessions on TER trains, sharing the daily work routine with both drivers (4) and ticket inspectors (4). Whether in the driver's cab or through the carriages that make up the trains, I accompanied these professionals over the course of a working day. During this time, I first had the opportunity – during breaks or moments of relative inactivity – to ask them directly about their tasks, professional relationships, and any concerns they might have regarding the border and/or their professional future. But above all, I was able to observe them in their interactions with colleagues, passengers, irregularized migrants, and law enforcement. These experiences were invaluable for understanding the pace of their work, the frequency of stressful moments, the loneliness of their daily professional lives, and the strategies they adopt to face difficulties. Additionally, I conducted several days of observation in the stations between Tende and Nice, and Ventimiglia and Cannes-la Bocca. I maintained a sketchbook of the observed spaces, took approximately sixty photos, ten videos, and twenty sound recordings (e.g. of the identity checks in Menton-Garavan) to document the spatial deployment of the migration control system.

In this paper, I chose to present two typical accounts of the moral dilemmas faced respectively by ticket inspectors and train drivers. The tasks and professional contexts of these two occupations differ, exposing them to specific moral dilemmas related to the types of dangers they witness, despite a shared emphasis on safety and equal treatment of passengers. By considering the ongoing organizational reform of the SNCF, and by comparing these two professions, the following sections highlight how their discretion is relational, influenced by various factors including their perception of accountability, their relationship with line management, their personal and professional resources, and their sensitive encounters with irregularized migrants and police officers.

## Taking risky initiatives: Sally

In the absence of a risk perceived as too high for people' safety (i.e. migrants hiding on the rooves or in the bellows between of carriages), RWs may take initiatives to help them cross the border by train, even at the risk of endangering their own professional positions. Indeed, various situations regularly arise in their professional lives, allowing them some flexibility in deciding how to interact with both irregularized migrants and the police.

Sally, a unionized ticket inspector whom I previously mentioned, is particularly committed to the principle of fair treatment among passengers. Reflecting on her daily life on the Ventimiglia-Nice TER line, she recalls that the prospect of moving to a position on the (Train Grande Vitesse, the high speed train) helped her endure the recurrent violence she witnessed: 'I saw some crazy things ... The police officers were dragging a pregnant woman on the ground with her baby in her arms. (...) I was out of my mind, holding on only because I knew my transfer to the TGV was coming' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).

However, this upcoming promotion did not make her compliant. Despite the fear of punishment, she distinguished herself among my interviewees for her repeated initiatives, taking risks that could jeopardize her career and beyond. She actively opposed the deportation of unaccompanied minors to Italy by the police at Menton-Garavan station. Sally informed herself about their rights, quoting legal articles to the police
<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>

officers, filming them, notifying her driver, and sometimes physically interfering with the arrests.

Her solidarity with irregularized migrants extended even further: she recounts three detailed incidents in 2016 where she hid a dozen of them on board during her shift. 'Once, in Ventimiglia, the carabinieri [Italy's national gendarmerie] were on the platform and the migrants were on the stairs. I was right in front of the stairs, so I could see them. They were crouching, trying to hide, watching the boots of the carabinieri, and I signalled them to stay calm. The carabinieri ordered, 'No one gets on the train!' It was the last train leaving Ventimiglia. I started to close all the doors of my train, leaving mine open. This was when I still had control over closing the doors. [Author: That's not possible anymore?] Sally: Now it's just the driver (who is alone now, without a ticket inspector). And then I saw the guys and signalled them, and they jumped in. The carabinieri whistled at me, but I quickly closed the door with the guys inside. The carabinieri knocked and knocked as we started to move, and I played dumb – like, 'Oh, oops!' There were many times like that, and the guys managed to hide.' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).

Sally employed various strategies, sometimes using very gendered behaviours, to divert the police's attention and allow the irregularized migrants onboard to hide avoiding being questioned, fully aware of the risks she was taking: 'I always told the guys [the migrants] to stay silent, not to talk. I once had them lying on the floor in my cabin until Cannes. They travelled from Ventimiglia to Cannes lying on the ground. Sometimes the police boarded the train. So, every time I had migrants in my cabin, I was very polite to the cops [she reenacts what she used to tell them]: 'Yes, I saw them board up front. Good luck, your job isn't easy.' And then they left. I would then think to myself, 'Idiots.' But I played along, you know?' [Author: So, it worked?] Sally: 'Well, of course! They're so macho, those CRS (Compagnie Républicaine de Sécurité). At the time, I was well-groomed, 15 kilos lighter, and I did the 'L'Oréal – I'm worth it' hair flip. It worked! Of course, if they had found migrants in my cabin, I would have been in big trouble, but I took the risk without thinking too much about it' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).

Sally knows that while her promotion to the TGV is possible, it is not guaranteed. Nevertheless, one of her strengths lies in the unwavering support of some of her colleagues and partner (an SNCF train driver): 'My boyfriend told me to be careful, but he always supported me. He'd say, 'Go ahead, you're right, go ahead,' and then I'd come home with stories to tell. If he hadn't supported me, I think I would have left him' (Sally, conductor, May 2022). Additionally, Sally relies on a relatively understanding direct manager and the backing of her union. This support empowers her to defy police orders when she deems them illegitimate, asserting her expertise and responsibilities in the railway sector with a certain irreverence: "You have to obey orders,' they told me. And I replied, 'No, I don't. I'm on the TER; this is my domain, and I'm the one who decides. And I'll quote you the laws you must follow.' But it was very challenging. One day, a senior officer blocked the train door, and I had to yell at him to remove his foot and let me close it. On the return trip, they were waiting for me – they tried to film me, so I showed them my backside. I went very far! They even tried to arrest me with handcuffs, and I told the driver, 'Take your phone and film everything.' Later, my boss called me and said, 'Sally, Pepy [the former Director of SNCF] is asking for your dismissal.' It's been crazy these past five years' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).
She protects herself from the risk of dismissal by writing 'concrete reports' and threatening media exposure of what she witnesses during her service: 'I documented everything, with videos. I told my boss, 'Make sure everyone knows, especially Pepy, that I have these videos, and if I release them, along with what I know – AFP [Agence France-Presse] will hear about it! You'll see what happens! Explain to management what I can do.' A week later, it all blew over. Now, there's no more talk about it – no warnings, no problems, no sanctions, nothing' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).

In addition to using strategic arguments to protect herself and having a good relationship with her direct supervisor, this example also illustrates the organizational conditions that enable RWs' disobedience when facing the police. At the time of Sally's anecdotes, in 2016, drivers and ticket inspectors still worked in pairs on all TER lines, which fostered strong mutual trust among colleagues, as Sally notes: 'All the drivers were great – I didn't have any issues with any of them. We were all good work colleagues that I had known for a long time' (Sally, conductor, May 2022). However, she quickly distinguishes between 'the old drivers' and the new generation that arrived in the 2010s, following another major restructuring of SNCF. This restructuring created a deep divide between the two professions, especially after the introduction of EAS (Single-Agent Equipment) in 2019, which led to the elimination of most ticket inspectors on TER lines: 'Among the drivers, there's a good group of guys who are really cool, mainly those aged 35–50. But the younger generation that came in – it's not the same. They were the first to say, 'Oh well, if the controllers leave, who cares, we'll get a bonus,' because they were given a small bonus. 'Anyway, the controllers are useless – they just sit around all day.' We'd say, 'Oh, you'll see when you have to manage a train and deal with all the passengers … '' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).

While Sally takes personal risks, she does so with the support of several colleagues (in addition to her partner) and by employing strategies that reduce the risk of electrocution or falls for the migrants, enabling them to hide onboard more safely. In this respect, her decision is influenced by the network of relationships she maintains – with the driver of her train, union colleagues, hierarchical superior, and her spouse – which not only encourage but sometimes even shield her actions, including when these actions openly expose her to potential sanctions due to their legal implications. Indeed, this protective network reminds Sally that her professional ethics require her to ensure both the safety of passengers (she hides the migrants in a spot that minimizes their risk) and the fair treatment of the migrants themselves (by hiding them, she restores a form of equality between irregularized migrants and other travelers).

This case, despite variations in the individual attitudes of ticket inspectors and train drivers, illustrates that sensitive interactions with irregularized migrants and law enforcement involve constrained decision-making. They involve a responsibility to interpret and implement directives in ways that extend beyond the standard professional framework. Specifically, discretionary decision-making can become an act of disobedience – particularly when the agent is supported by protective networks. Since 2019, with drivers working alone, there is little room for collaboration with colleagues during interactions with police officers or irregularized migrants attempting to cross the border by train. Consequently, these agents bear sole responsibility for ensuring passenger safety, preventing accidents, and guaranteeing equal treatment of all clients, as the following case will demonstrate.
<figure><img src="image_20.png" /></figure>

## Drivers and the specter of personal injury: Véronique

The primary mission of an SNCF driver is to ensure the safety of themselves, the passengers on board, and anyone in the vicinity of the train.⁹ This responsibility often plays a crucial role in shaping their actions when dealing with irregularized migrants. This core principle of railway ethics forms the basis of their accountability to colleagues, supervisors, and passengers. As such, 'turning a blind eye' emerges as a form of solidarity on the part of RWs – one that is far from straightforward, given their duty to ensure safety. The example of Véronique illustrates this well.

Véronique, 45, comes from a family of RWs – her parents, brother, and sister all worked in the company. After several years as a ticket inspector, she became a TER driver on the VNCG line. She is reluctant to report irregularized migrants on board when there is no risk of a breakdown or electrocution, yet she feels relieved by the increased police inspections on the line. The presence of migrants on or near the tracks has caused her such anxiety that she has regularly taken sick leave. The psychological impact of the border and the organizational changes within SNCF has been significant: 'The evolution of the job, oh my! We had ticket inspectors when I started. And from the day they cut out the ticket inspectors, they lost me ... they lost me, the driving job became very anxiety-inducing for me. Today, it is very complicated (...). And as a result, it's an additional workload, it's an additional responsibility, and it's true that ... I mean, the migrants ... I've been completely exhausted for four years with the migrants. So, there you go, my boss is aware of it. I've had sick leave every year ... I'm burned out, I can't ... I can't anymore.' (Véronique, driver, June 2021). She would like to leave SNCF, but due to the lack of opportunities within the company and her lack of interest in another sector or profession, she considers herself lucky simply to have a job.

Faced with this impasse, Véronique adopts practices aimed at avoiding distressing situations, such as accidents (i.e. to deal with the aftermath of a migrant's electrocution). For instance, she regularly requests police intervention when irregularized migrants are on the train: 'I leave from Ventimiglia, and my train breaks down, I have breakdowns. And I know that I have migrants in my electrical closet. So, I arrive at the station (of Menton-Garavan), I said 'go, it's going to be ok,' I asked the cops to come with me to open the electrical closet because I'm not afraid of aggression, but I'm afraid of discovering a body, you know? It's complicated for me. And the cop, I say to him 'Will you open the electrical closet?'; he says 'no, we just check IDs'; I say 'come with me, we're going to open the electrical closet; and indeed, I knew where it had gone wrong, so we open the electrical closet. There were three migrants in it (...) So they did all the electrical closets for me. I was reassured, you know?' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).

When faced with the dilemma of 'preventing an accident' or 'allowing the irregularized migrants to continue their journey,' she chooses the first option, even though she wishes they could travel freely on the trains: 'It's not that I want to stop the migrants, because I don't care if they come to France, you know? But I'm ... I'm always afraid of finding a body in a closet or someone who's been burned, you know? I'd rather he gets on the train and 'sit down and don't move, I'll take you wherever you want,' but you know?' (Sally, conductor, May 2022). However, it is well known that once the police are alerted, an irregularized migrant cannot travel on the train like any other passenger. Véronique could have
checked the state of the electrical closet herself and possibly advised the migrants hiding there to move to a compartment to continue their journey safely. However, she systematically chooses to call the police when alerted, to avoid bearing the potential responsibility for their deaths or confronting a psychologically distressing situation, such as rescuing someone who has suffered an electric shock. The consequences of her choice are clear: the migrants are systematically stopped and sent back to Italy by the police.

In order to cope with the emotional consequences of this choice, Véronique adopts an avoidance stance during the police searches of the electrical closets she has requested: 'I don't want to... I opened the door and let the cop handle it. I saw a red T-shirt from behind and... And I let, I let him handle it, I... No, I keep a lot of distance from it, it's not that I'm insensitive or anything, but... So, I prefer not to. I'm not looking at 'how many,' you know? It's women, it's children. Yes, of course, I've seen women and children come down, but... I don't linger' (Sally, conductor, May 2022). By not looking at them or lingering, she avoids seeing the fear and dismay on their faces, hearing the cries and pleas, even the insults of the police officers, and assuming responsibility for it. Additionally, by focusing on her mission to ensure passenger safety, which is the core of her job, she reduces her empathy for migrants who put themselves in danger: 'I could even be angry with a migrant, saying to myself, 'why the hell are you climbing on the roof? Don't you get it? (...). But then they had no other means, so I tried to distance myself from all that' (Sally, conductor, May 2022).

In addition to this constant effort to distance herself, which led her to undergo psychiatric treatment, Véronique feels vulnerable in her professional environment: 'It's not that I don't feel I can legitimately drive a train, but it's true that I'm a woman, I don't have any confidence in myself' (Sally, conductor, May 2022). While driving a train in an almost entirely male domain could be a source of pride, she devalues herself: she emphasizes her limited chances as a woman to find another job at her age, as well as her emotional fragility in facing an accident involving someone she has never had to deal with. For all these reasons, Véronique feels indebted to her local manager, who has accompanied her in the cab several times during the Ventimiglia-Menton trips: 'If I need him, he is there. If I need to talk to him, I need to, you know... To be relieved. He listens, you see, even if he can't do much on the ground' (Sally, conductor, May 2022). Thus, despite the anguish and discomfort that torment her at work, Véronique does not adopt a demanding attitude and does not want to trouble her direct supervisor any further, as he shows understanding and concern for her worries, even though he cannot offer much help.

This illustrative case reveals that while moral dilemmas (e.g. whether to report irregularized migrants to the police or allow them to continue despite potential risks to life) could previously be shared with colleagues and resolved in pairs (e.g. driver/ticket inspector), recent fragmentation of work groups and vague instructions mean that each driver must decide how to act or react when facing migrants and police. Thus, Véronique's distress is also a result of her isolation and the lack of professional support in her workplace – especially since her supervisor's solidarity compels her not to disappoint him in the area where she is the most accountable: ensuring safety. In this respect, her story also highlights the difficulty of being confronted with the risks taken by irregularized migrants to cross the border, while having to make an immediate decision between two conflicting options: turning a blind eye to the danger and 'letting them go,' at the
<figure><img src="image_21.png" /></figure>

risk of injury or death; or reporting them to the police, thereby removing them from
immediate harm but also potentially hindering their journey or exposing them to
police violence.

Findings and discussion

The cases of Sally and Véronique highlight how railway ethics – rooted in principles such as public service, passenger safety, and fair treatment of clients – conflict with border migration management. RWs are expected to support police operations that not only differentiate clients based on their administrative status but also contribute to increasing the risks and fatalities faced by irregularized migrants. These everyday situations often lead to heartbreaking dilemmas, forcing RWs to make discretionary decisions about border crossings by train, a responsibility outside their competence and colliding with their professional ethos. Therefore, discretion is far from a form of power for every RW (Bourdieu 1990). Rather, it becomes an obligation perceived as an unfair burden (Borrelli, Johannesson, and Lindberg 2025; Okkonen and Takala 2019), but in the case of RWs, one that goes far beyond their professional domain and duties.

The uncertainty caused by the conflicting instructions and responsibilities – such as facilitating police work, ensuring the safety of all passengers, and treating everyone fairly – leads to a range of responses, from ‘being zealous’ to outright disobedience of management. As a result, not all RWs disobey or oppose SNCF’s directive to support police operations at the border. Even those who express concerns about irregularized migrants do not show their solidarity in the same way, nor do they allow or take on the same risks for migrants. Some, like Véronique, argue that ‘helping them’ primarily means ‘helping them avoid death,’ even if it involves handing them over to the police. This is partly connected to two typical, yet specific, situations of encountering irregularized migrants: drivers generally meet them when a danger has already been identified (such as an electrical failure or accident), whereas ticket inspectors can interact with migrants attempting to hide onboard, without putting their lives at risk. This means that drivers, while being the primary responsible for onboard safety, are also the most frequently exposed (especially since they are now alone onboard) to potentially life-threatening risks taken by irregularized migrants. This helps explaining why the majority of them collaborate with law enforcement, even if reluctantly.

A second factor that helps explain the varying discretionary choices made by RWs regarding border crossings pertains to the relational aspects of decision-making. To understand why and under what conditions RWs decide (or not) to actively help irregularized migrants, the two cases suggest we must seriously consider the social and organizational positions of these workers. I argue that their social networks – comprising the personal and professional relations they rely on, including colleagues, line management, police officers, family members, and union representatives – strongly influences how they navigate the moral dilemmas they face. The profound organizational changes within their company, SNCF, have led to the near-total disappearance of ticket inspectors on cross-border lines since 2019. This has intensified the fragmentation of the workforce, increased the isolation of the agents, and individualized responsibility in the event of an accident. That’s why Véronique feels isolated with the looming threat of a personal injury accident. She wants to change careers but fears ending up unemployed at nearly 50, relying on her
manager as she doesn't want to disappoint him. As her accountability is rooted in drivers'
responsibility to ensure safety and prevent accidents, she limits her solidarity with irregu-
larized migrants to actions that do not involve risks (for them and herself), and calls the
police every time she suspects one, delegating the responsibility of checking for a body. In
addition, Sally's case shows that acts of open disobedience in favour of irregularized
migrants' border crossings can be made when the RW can rely on a network of pro-
fessional (her fellow driver, the union) and personal (her partner, friends) relationships
that justify, support and cover her initiatives. Moreover, factors such as age, career oppor-
tunities (e.g. the prospect of a promotion), and personal experiences (e.g. encounters with
irregularized migrants, interactions with the police) help her feel unafraid of potential
sanctions. However, since the role of ticket inspectors is now marginal, these practices
of solidarity are likely to disappear or, at the very least, change in nature.

Conclusion

RW's' discretionary decision-making on border-crossings play a crucial role in shaping the practical effects of the border regime (De Genova 2010). At this deadly border between France and Italy, strategic non-regulation as a form of migration governance (Natter, Norman, and Stel 2023) leads to a partial delegation of migration control and accountability for border deaths to transport workers. In the specific case of RWs, their primary responsibility is to ensure the safety of passengers and their fair treatment. As such, this delegation produces moral dilemmas, because professional directives and ethics collide, forcing them to make decisions that become moral burdens regarding who and under what conditions can cross the border.

Through empirical research, I aimed to understand, on the one hand, which situations
and experiences cause RWs to hesitate between different behaviours – ranging from
actively supporting irregularized migrants to reporting them – and which principles
they invoke to justify their actions. On the other hand, I sought to determine why and
under what social conditions they participate in border-crossing, sometimes at the per-
sonal risk of being sanctioned. The data reveal that for some RW, particularly drivers
who value fair treatment and freedom of movement, it is difficult to perform their
duties. The border control system directly impacts their working conditions, and they
are regularly confronted with the risks that irregularized migrants take to cross the
border. As they are required to ‘facilitate police work,’ RWs are, in effect – though some-
times unintentionally – implementers of border control policies. Even those who wish to
facilitate the crossing of irregularized migrants must make discretionary decisions in deli-
cate situations where the latter take significant risks with their lives. The choice of whether
or not to report irregularized migrants to the police is a recurring moral dilemma, exacer-
bated by the fact that drivers are often left alone on the train due to the drastic reduction
in the number of ticket inspectors on these lines. Nevertheless, decisions are not necess-
arily detrimental to irregularized migrants; when life-threatening risk is low, organiz-
ational conditions and the RW's support networks allow it, they may choose to actively
helps migrants to cross the border. As such, the paper shows how moral dilemmas and
how RWs practices have concrete effects on migrants' lives and fates, and eventually
on the implementation of border control and migration policy. To this extent, they are
part of the chain of interdependencies of the implementation of border control.
<figure><img src="image_22.png" /></figure>

In conclusion, it is crucial to reconsider the harmful effects of the dilemmas and ongoing challenges faced by RWs on cross-border lines. Beyond the uncertainties and inconsistent behaviour of agents who often struggle to identify the least harmful option, these testimonies highlight the pervasive nature of stress, burnout, and sick leave – far from being exceptions in the professions studied. How do they cope in this environment? Some experience severe psychological distress, extending well beyond working hours, and seek to change careers, although their age, SNCF restructuring, and/or lack of skills in other fields lead to feelings of pessimism. Others, unfortunately, develop a form of habituation to suffering, adapting to border violence and becoming detached from the misery of irregularized migrants.

The victims of the border regime are numerous, and while the difficulties faced by French or Italian RWs are not comparable to those of the irregularized migrants, there are countless reasons to question the political and ethical legitimacy of the existence and current functioning of European borders – also in light of their effects on the working conditions of these RWs, which have already been degraded by neoliberal managerial reforms.

## Notes

1. In contrast to the binary framing that regularly contrasts forced and voluntary migrants, both in some scientific literature and in the political and media spheres (Abdelaaty and Hamlin 2022), I have chosen to use the category of 'irregularized migrants' (van Houte, Kaşlı, and Leerkes 2023; Eule et al. 2019). In addition to short-circuiting the opposition between deserving refugees and undesirable economic migrants (Rijken & Pijnenburg, 2021), this category has two main merits: firstly, it designates any foreigner who has left his or her country in the hope of finding better living conditions elsewhere, without having obtained or retained legal status in the country where he or she is (Coutin 2011); secondly, it allows the institutions of the so-called 'host' country or countries to be held responsible for this administrative precariousness, which they produce though restrictive asylum and border control (De Genova 2010; Donadio 2021).

2. For several years, the National Rally (Rassemblement National, right-wing nationalist) has led voters' preferences in this department during presidential elections. Meanwhile, the Republicans (LR, right-wing) have consistently controlled the presidency of the departmental council, as well as several municipalities like Nice and Menton, for multiple terms, with no left-wing parties advancing to the second round of municipal elections.

3. I focused SNCF' RWs on the Ventimiglia-Nice-Grasse-Cannes line (VNGC) and the line that crosses the Roya Valley (VR).

4. Since 2015, there have been over forty recorded deaths near railway lines in this area, with an unaccounted number of injuries. These comprise irregularized migrants who are electrocuted on the rooves of carriages and in electrical closets inside trains; people who fall off the train after hiding in the bellows between carriages or on the couplings; those hit by a train while walking along the tracks or by vehicles along the highway; irregularized migrants swept away by the floods of the Roya River or who have fallen from the cliff called 'Pas de la mort' while trying to cross the border between Ventimiglia and Menton on foot.

5. The Proximity manager is based at a "mother station", manages a function (e.g. driving) over a geographical sector extending to several stations, and is therefore only responsible for those in his/her team.

6. The General Confederation of Labour (CGT) is a historically left-wing trade union confederation and the majority union among ticket inspectors in the Alpes-Maritimes. However, in this region, where right-wing political parties have strong support, membership in the CGT does
not necessarily imply adherence to traditionally left-wing values or a left-wing voting preference.

7. Contrary to a purely coercive view of power, Pierre Bourdieu (1990) analyzes it as a form of domination – of an individual or a group over others – exercised relationally, rooted in social structures and the power relations within a given field.

8. Here, I adopt a minimalist definition of "moral dilemma" without delving into the broader problematic situations examined by moral philosophy (see McConnell 2022 for an overview). On one hand, a moral dilemma involves an experiential dimension (having done something morally questionable) and a cognitive dimension (taking responsibility for it). On the other hand, it involves a duty to decide in the face of a situation that causes the actor to hesitate, either in the moment or afterward, between two or more choices that are not optimal. Thus, the individual may present valid reasons for each choice but must also discard some options, as the actions resulting from the choices are incompatible and therefore cannot be pursued simultaneously.

9. It is important to distinguish from the outset between safety and security: the former focuses on preventing, avoiding, or mitigating the consequences of accidents that could harm people or damage railway infrastructure on board trains, in stations, or along the tracks; the latter, central to the role of a 'railway security officer', refers to threats posed to property and individuals by others engaging in dangerous, threatening, or fraudulent behavior, particularly in stations.

## Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

## Funding

This work was supported by Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France) [Grant Number ANR-18-CE41-0008].

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