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French Union: Pay Us, Or We'll Blow Up the Plant

Posted by: Carol Matlack on July 14

As French unemployment creeps relentlessly higher, the country’s famously tough labor unions are getting even more aggressive. First, they tried “bossnapping” — taking their bosses hostage. Now, unions at a bankrupt auto-parts factory are threatening to blow the place up unless its two principal customers, Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroën, fork over some $14 million in severance payments to workers.

The unions say they have placed gas canisters throughout the New Fabris factory in the town of Chatellerault, about 200 miles southeast of Paris, and will detonate them on July 31 unless the automakers pay $42,000 to each of its 336 employees. “If we don’t get anything, they’ll have nothing at all,” a union representative told the newspaper Le Figaro, referring to factory machinery and inventory, valued at about $5.6 million, that either belongs to or had been ordered by the two automakers.

New Fabris, which entered bankruptcy proceedings last November, has few assets available to pay laid-off workers. But union leaders contend that Renault and PSA, because they have received nearly $4 billion apiece in government bailout loans, have an obligation to help. Not surprisingly, the automakers disagree. “We can’t be expected to support, by ourselves, the restructuring of 12% of the French economy,” a PSA spokesman told Reuters.

French Industry Minister Christian Estrosi has agreed to meet with union leaders on July 20. But, he said in a July 13 interview on French radio network RTL, “I say to these workers, ‘Be reasonable,’ because our country cannot, in the current crisis, tolerate such threats.”

Defusing the situation won’t be easy, though. As global recession took hold last year, most French workers initially were cushioned by strict anti-layoff laws that make it costly and time-consuming for employers to trim payrolls. But more and more employers simply don’t have a choice: Credit insurer Euler Hermes forecasts that business bankruptcies in France will rise 30% this year after a 15% rise in 2008.

French unemployment hit 9.3% in May, the highest rate of any major Western European country except Spain, according to figures released July 13 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. And it’s expected to keep rising into double digits next year, even as the French government doles out $37 million in economic-stimulus funds.

Despite their fierce rhetoric, it’s doubtful whether unions would actually blow up a factory. Labor-related violence and sabotage are relatively rare here. But even if they tried, angry workers wouldn’t change this fact: Many of the jobs France is losing now, in industries ranging from automotives to luxury goods, are gone for good. When the global economy rebounds, they’ll turn up in lower-cost countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, or North Africa.

Reader Comments

Squeezebox

July 14, 2009 01:23 PM

Let the crybabies blow up the plant! The companies will get insurance payments which will help them pay off their debts. This finds a buyer for otherwise worthless assets. The conspirators will spend time in prison. The crybabies will get nothing but trouble in the end!

Claude

July 14, 2009 04:40 PM

This is a joke right...did i stumble onto the Onion site by accident?

DanTe

July 14, 2009 06:23 PM

So why aren't the cops there arresting these terrorists? Typical 3rd World bull.

Strategery

July 14, 2009 07:16 PM

Anyone study the French Revolution? To this day, the French government is fearful of its citizens (as it should be), where in the USA it is the other way around. If both congress and business leaders do not move quickly to stop layoffs, high unemployment, uncontrolled immigration, outsourcing, bloated CEO pay, corporate welfare, rigged commodity markets, rigged 401k accounts, the broken healthcare system, corrupt politicians and business leaders, etc....then a revolution in the US is probably inevitable. I believe that it's a matter of when, not if.

Squeezebox

July 15, 2009 09:39 AM

To Strategery: people have revolutions all the time, but they do no good. One corrupt politician is replaced by another, and it's business as usual by the multinationals. The multis play one nation against another, even getting dictators to do their union busting for them. What we're going through is a sudden lowering of market barriers due to the internet and free trade agreements. Until labor prices equilibrate all over the world (due to the multis' labor arbitrage) the first and second worlds are gonna get hurt. The French think they can have high wages and jobs too.

Correspondent Carol Matlack

July 15, 2009 10:26 AM

Here's an interesting update to this story: The threat to blow up the New Fabris factory has already spurred a copycat incident. Christian Estrosi, the French Minister of Industry, said on July 15 that striking workers at a Nortel telecoms equipment factory near Paris, "following the example" of the New Fabris employees, had made a similar threat on July 14. However, he said they backed down within 24 hours and removed gas canisters they had placed inside the Nortel factory. Nortel, based in Canada, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, and more than 460 employees at the French site are being laid off. A representative of the workers told the Associated Press that they made the threat to back their demand for a "decent" severance package.

Sal Iozzia

July 15, 2009 10:51 PM

"probably inevitable" FTW

steve baker

July 16, 2009 05:25 PM

Carol, I think this fits under the "news you can use" rubric.

Good for them

July 18, 2009 04:18 PM

It's about time workers started to stand up for themselves.

Todd

November 2, 2009 05:46 PM

Crybabies? So, I guess you know all about the culture and history of 'the French.'

Squeezebox, Claude, and Dante: You read this article and judged the people of this French union? End of story?

One day you might find out that no one has a good solution to the problems we all face; not even Mr. Lebowski. Sometimes (and I'm not promoting what these union ppl were threatening), there's nothing left for people to do but blow stuff up or slowly wither away.

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