On Monday the French transport strike entered its sixth day as the commuters had to face another day of travel headaches. According to officials, the national rail authority loses almost 20 million euros ($29 million) a day due to the transit unions strike.

Phillipe Routier, a spokesman for the rail authority SNCF, said that fewer than half of the 700 high-speed TGV trains were running today.

Seventy five percent of Thalys trains to Belgium were running.

Routier added that a third of trains to the Paris suburbs and 68% of national mainline Corail trains were running on Monday, CNN reports.

The unions went into strike last week because of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans regarding a pension reform. The reform is focusing on a plan that will allow some workers to retire as early as 50.

On Sunday six of the unions agreed to negotiate on Wednesday with the government.

One of the government’s proposals could be the reforming of the way pensions are calculated in order to give more money at retirement.

Labor Minister Xavier Bertrand asked for the workers to end their strike before the talks on Wednesday, but the unions refused. Until Sunday, the bargain regarding the end of the strike was thwarted.

Arnaud Morvan, secretary of train workers at CFDT union, a moderate organization said: "It was high time (to take the decision to end the strike): there's no reason to continue the strike. There's a margin for talks, but we all know that the government reform will pass."

Francois Chereque, head of CFDT, said that he doesn’t know why they have to wait until Wednesday and that the talks could start today.

According to officials, the unions want to prolong the strike so as to have other civil servants join them on Tuesday, as they will walk out of work to protest against the job cuts in public services announced by the government.