12 July 2009 - 18H31
French workers threaten to blow up factory
Furious employees at the bankrupt New Fabris factory in central-eastern France are demanding 30, 000 euros each in compensation from Renault and PSA-Peugeot. If no agreement is found by July 31, the 366 workers threaten to blow up the factory.
AFP - Workers at a bankrupt French car parts supplier are threatening to blow up their factory unless carmakers Renault and PSA-Peugeot pay them compensation, a union official said Sunday.
The 366 employees of New Fabris in central-eastern Chatellerault, are occupying the plant to demand that the auto giants -- who accounted for 90 percent of their business -- pay 30,000 euros (42,000 dollars) to each worker.
"The gas bottles are in the factory. Everything has been planned for it to blow up," unless there is an accord by July 31, Guy Eyermann, CGT union official and secretary of the company works council, told AFP.
The Chatellerault factory is thought to house car parts worth some two million euros, as well as a new Renault machine estimated at a further two million, the union leader said.
"We are not going to let PSA and Renault wait until August or September to recover the spare parts and machines still in the factory," he warned.
"If we get nothing, they get nothing at all."
Eyermann said two coachloads of workers had visited Peugeot headquarters last week, and a similar delegation would head Thursday to visit Renault bosses and the French employment ministry to try to negotiate a settlement.
They hope to force the state to put pressure on the carmakers, which both received public funds to help them through the global downturn.
The New Fabris workers, whose employer was declared bankrupt on June 16, claim that Renault and PSA paid some 30,000 euros to 200 workers laid off from another supplier, the aluminium specialist Rencast.
Founded in 1947 by two brothers, Eugene and Quentin Fabris, New Fabris started out making sewing machine parts, before branching out into the auto sector, employing up to 800 workers in the 1990s.
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Comments
Workers
extortion???? Do you mean like what the banks and auto industry have just extorted for the US workers so their ceos can get golden parachutes and keep their bonasses. Enough is enough, it's better to go out with a bang. However, it would be better to just pike the ceo bassturds.
"This is extortion, pure and simple.
They should all be arrested and charged with extortion."
True to form
In true unions style, these people are going to blow up the factory, get arrested, have a criminal record and expect the state to pay them lots of money in benefits so that those that have jobs have to bail them out. The unions are so short-sighted and childish. It doesn't matter if we ruin our lives by doing this, at least we showed them! (yes you showed the world how silly you are). Come on people, spend your time working on your CVs instead of reading the "How to make a bomb" manuals;
Economy
Time to "blow up" the parliament and maybe get new leadership, non?
Bonne Chance
Nice to see people standing up for themselves. Hopefully, others around the world will take notice and workers will be much more forceful. Violent labor movements have been a part of history for a long time, but have recently been squelched by violent state behavior and very punitive laws. Nice way to strike back, though the symbolic representation of the action means that gains will not happen without a strong fight.
Keep making the news.
Vive la France!
Honestly, you get no sympathy from the rest of the world. These methods you use in France are barbaric, and maybe they worked during the revolution but those times are long gone. Get over yourselves and start behaving like adults.
Workers Rights
These workers only want what is fair. Other factory workers with the same company were paid 30,000 when they were laid off, yet these were not. This cheap company is just trying to save money by letting people go without proper recompense so I have no sympathy for them. How anyone can sympathize with big business is beyond me. How many lives have been ruined thanks to corporate greed?
French workers threaten to blow up factory
I am amazed what is tolerated in France.Threaten to go ahead and blow up a factory? I know the workers have there grievences,but anywhere else in Europe this would be a criminal act,but not it seem's in France.
Do the police just stand there and watch the exposion? France's left wing lunacy is out of control. Companies will flee from investing in France,and more people will lose there jobs. The socialists are digging there own ecomonic graves!
This is not a greve
This is extortion, pure and simple.
They should all be arrested and charged with extortion.
Blowing up factory threat
What is the problem? Big business commits suicide and in the process blows up jobs. This is normal. But if workers threaten to blow up a factory it is unacceptable!
lol, how can that help ?
I totally agree with the previous comment. How will blowing up the factory help their cause ? what good is it going to make ? wha can they understand that things are slightly more complicated than selling those equipement back and share the benefits between the workers ?
They are short of pathetic, they should understand that the state cannot help and it's that behavior ( keeping a company alive when it cannot live ) that causes the crisis. If this business doesn't work, then another one has to be started and the workers would be better looking for new initiatives and opportunities than clinging to the past... what we need now is dynamism and energy. Not self-centered reactions and/ or nostalgia fo a mysterious better time
Blowing up factory
How is blowing up the factory going to help them, afterwards all the workers will be blacklisted effecting all of there families, is this an intelligent move? no it's a ignorant thing to do and will brand French workers as unreliable and violent, I'm appalled, this is terrorism, do they really think this will further their cause.