FRENCH STRIKERS HOLD 3M EXECUTIVE HOSTAGE !

[Anonymous]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090325/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_labor_unrest
French strikers hold 3M exec hostage amid talks
PITHIVIERS,
France – Striking French workers for U.S. manufacturer 3M held their
boss hostage amid labor talks Wednesday at a plant south of Paris, as
anger over layoffs and cutbacks mounted around the country.While the
situation at the 3M plant outside Pithiviers was calm, worker rage
elsewhere boiled over into an angry march on the presidential palace in
Paris and a bonfire of tires set alight by Continental AG employees
whose auto parts factory was being shut down.While France has a long
tradition of labor unrest, the latest wave of hostage-takings, marches
and strikes has echoed across Europe, as the global slowdown fans job
fears and leaves many workers skeptical of their leaders’ ability to
solve the crisis.The French division of 3M — a diversified U.S.
manufacturer known for Post-It notes and Scotch tape — recently
announced layoffs and job transfers among its 2,700 workers at 13
French sites. Among those targeted are 110 of the Pithiviers factory’s
235 workers.

A few dozen workers at Pithiviers took turns
standing guard Wednesday outside factory offices where the director of
3M’s French operations, Luc Rousselet, has been holed up since Tuesday.
The workers did not threaten any violence and the atmosphere was calm.A
few police officers stood outside, while workers inside exchanged jokes
and worries about their future amid heaps of empty plastic coffee cups
and boxes of cookies.Talks among 3M workers and management resumed
Wednesday mediated by a local labor official. Rousselet was not taking
part. Workers want better severance packages for those being laid off
and better conditions for those keeping their jobs.

In France,
it is not unheard-of for striking workers to hold company executives as
a way of winning concessions from management. The hostages are almost
never injured. A similar situation ended peacefully earlier this month
at Sony’s French facilities.”We don’t have any other ammunition” other
than hostage-taking, said Laurent Joly, who has worked at the
Pithiviers plant for 11 years and is angry that he is being transferred
to another French site.”I really have the impression that we no longer
exist for these people,” Genevieve Camus, who has worked for the plant
for 35 years, said of the company’s U.S. management.The Maplewood,
Minnesota-based 3M is also planning job cuts at facilities in the
United States and other developed nations.The 3M workers at Pithiviers
have been on strike since Friday. Hamon said Rousselet was blocked from
leaving the factory Tuesday after arriving from 3M France headquarters
near Paris.

Store owners in Pithiviers were shutting down early
on Wednesday to support the factory workers.When Rousselet came out of
the guarded office to go to the bathroom Wednesday, workers booed him
while reporters asked how he was holding up.”Everything’s fine,” he
said.Workers planned to bring Rousselet mussels and french fries for
dinner if he was still there Wednesday night.

In Paris, an acrid
plume of black smoke from burning tires wafted mere blocks from
President Nicolas Sarkozy’s Elysee Palace. It was a clear signal that
French labor unrest over the state of the euro zone’s second-largest
economy had taken an ugly turn for the worse.Faced with what it calls
the collapse of the European auto market, Germany’s Continental
recently announced plans to close the plant in Clairoix, northeast of
Paris, in 2010.”We shouldn’t let this company close down, otherwise it
means that all these robber bosses can do whatever they want to,” said
Antonio Da Costa, a union representative.

Rising public outrage at employers also surfaced in Scotland.
Vandals
attacked the home and car of the former head of the Royal Bank of
Scotland, smashing windows early Wednesday at the house of the ex-CEO
who resigned in disgrace but walked out with an annual pension of about
700,000 pounds ($1.2 million).Three windows were smashed at Fred
Goodwin’s sandstone Victorian house in one of Edinburgh’s wealthy
suburbs. The rear window of a black Mercedes S600 car parked in the
driveway was also smashed.

[Author]

March 25, 2009 at 3:50 PM