From Bloomberg
Michelin & Cie. workers protesting the planned closure of a site in eastern France held a pair of managers hostage overnight as company officials sought to end the situation.
The executives held at the tire factory in Toul include the social-relations director and the local head of personnel, spokeswoman Francoise Rault said.
“We’re trying to get out of this situation through dialogue,” Rault said, adding that the company didn’t plan to call in law enforcement.
Job losses in French industry are pushing workers to take desperate measures. In the Rhone valley, nine Electricite de France SA workers are on hunger strike to save their positions. Manufacturers shed jobs in every quarter last year, the French Statistics Office said today.
“Job losses in French industry will continue under difficult conditions,” Dominique Barbet, an economist at BNP Paribas SA, said. “There is a history in France of violent and difficult labor conflicts and this continues today.”
French industry, which has pared jobs every year since 2001, may shrink more with the national statistics agency Insee saying this week that growth slowed in the fourth quarter. President Nicolas Sarkozy crisscrossed the country in recent weeks to meet workers, including those at the Gandrange plant in eastern France that ArcelorMittal plans to close.
‘Radical’ Workers
“In the private sector just 5 percent of workers are unionized, which isn’t very much,” Barbet said. “As a consequence those that belong to unions are the most radical.”
French unemployment has dropped to the lowest in more than two decades as hiring in services and construction more than made up for the decline in factory jobs.
Services such as banking, insurance and retail created 282,400 jobs last year, and construction firms hired a net 64,200 jobs, according to the government. Manufacturers, energy producers and foodmakers shed 49,000 jobs.
Workers put Michelin’s factory in Toul under a virtual siege this week, burning tires and setting up blockades. The world’s second-largest tiremaker announced in December the closure next year of the factory employing 826 workers.
Fewer than half of the employees will be offered jobs by energy and water utility Suez SA, which plans to set up a recycling center at the site, Michelin Chief Executive Officer Michel Rollier said in a radio interview.
‘Heavy Heart’
“I understand the emotion of the workers and it is with a heavy heart that we are cutting jobs,” Rollier said. The company recently announced 2007 net income rose 35 percent to $1.13 billion.
Costs are 50 percent higher at the Toul factory than the average of others owned by the company, he said.
Suez stepped in with its plan for a recycling plant after Sarkozy visited the site and said Michelin should help fight unemployment in the region.
At Electricite de France’s Cruas-Meysse nuclear plant in the Rhone Valley, nine workers entered their fourth day of a hunger strike today in a “desperate act to save their jobs,” Yves Adelin, a representative at the site of the Confederation Generale du Travail union said by telephone.
The workers are employed by Essor SAS, the Pierrelatte, France-based unit of Vinci SA, which took over a maintenance contract with Electricite de France last year.
They are staying in trailers in front of the plant to protest the loss of 23 jobs, Adelin said.
An employee who answered the phone at Essor and declined to give her name said management didn’t want to comment.
‘Social Dialogue’
“Social dialogue is a priority for EDF,” Robin Devogelaere, a spokesman for the utility, said by telephone. “EDF is following the situation closely.”
Almost two years ago, French lawmaker Jean Lassalle went on a 39-day hunger strike to protest a plan by Japanese aluminum producer Toyo Aluminium K.K. to move a plant out of Accous, a city in his southern district. He said the action was to save jobs in the Aspe Valley and agreed to eat again after Toyo accepted subsidies to expand the plant.
Sarkozy has tried to prevent companies from cutting French jobs. The president met ArcelorMittal Chief Executive Officer Lakshmi Mittal to avert the Gandgrange closure. Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Feb. 6 that the government is ready to “temporarily” take over the plant if no buyer is found.
“There will be an economic slowdown this year and less job creation, which won’t do anything to prevent labor conflicts,” Barbet said.
