French auto workers threaten to blow up factory

[bellyscratch]

Workers at collapsed French car parts maker New Fabris threatened on Sunday to blow up their factory if they did not receive payouts by July 31 from auto groups Renault and Peugeot to compensate for their lost jobs.

Reuters reported that workers Workers at collapsed French car parts maker New Fabris threatened on Sunday to blow up their factory if they did not rost jobs.
New Fabris was declared in liquidation in April, so the workers stand to get no redundancy money, although they are entitled to draw state unemployment benefit.
They want Renault SA and PSA Peugeot Citroen to pay 30,000 euros ($41,800) for each of the 336 staff at the factory, or some 10 million euros in total, in return for its remaining stocks of equipment and machinery.

"The bottles of gas have already been placed at various parts of the factory and are connected with each other," CGT trades union official Guy Eyermann told France Info radio.

"If Renault and PSA refuse to give us that money it could blow up before the end of the month," he added

A delegation of the workers has a meeting on Thursday with Renault, which had no immediate comment. Police also declined to comment on the threat by the workers, who are occupying the New Fabris factory at Chatellerault, near Poitiers in central France.

The company is the successor to Fabris, founded in 1947 and put into liquidiation in 2007. It was later acquired by ZEN of Italy which is headed by Florindo Garro. ZEN SpA, based in Albignasego near Padua, makes cast iron parts for vehicles.

Garro controls other metal firms in France such as Rencast and SBFM that also have financial difficulties.

Some French workers have adopted militant tactics in the economic crisis, including "bossnappings" where managers have been held hostage in their offices.
http://libcom.org/news/french-factory-workers-threaten-blow-factory-12072009

I love the French! :D

[K.Bullstreet]

Quite a humbling and refreshing story I think.

:scared:
http://libcom.org/files/imagecache/lead/images/news/photo_1247403234451-1-0.jpg (http://libcom.org/news/french-factory-workers-threaten-blow-factory-12072009)

[Pogue]

these guys are fucking nutters, massive respect to them

[FreeFocus]

Good stuff right here :cool:

[BostonCharlie]

The spirit is wholly admirable, but now haven't the workers who mined the factory just given the pigs - in the form of advanced notice - lots of time to find and disable the mines?

Things like this need more thought in the execution.

[An archist]

The spirit is wholly admirable, but now haven't the workers who mined the factory just given the pigs - in the form of advanced notice - lots of time to find and disable the mines?

Things like this need more thought in the execution.

Their goal is to get compensation for being fired, not to blow the place up, so they have to let people know, it's a threat, it doesn't work if no one knows about it.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Their goal is to get compensation for being fired, not to blow the place up, so they have to let people know, it's a threat, it doesn't work if no one knows about it.

Also, I don't think they have actually planted any explosives as of now. Surely they will wait for the response of the capitalists. By the way big respect for the workers there. Their courage and audacity is incredible.

[BostonCharlie]

Ah...yes...reading comprehension problem here. :blushing:

Well I hope it works out for the workers - depends on questions I don't know the answers to, like if the factory owners can call on the bomb squad to find the mines and not have to pay for their efforts (and the costs to them of the delays in whatever they have to do to shut down the place aren't much more than the payout the workers are asking.)

[Pogue]

Also, I don't think they have actually planted any explosives as of now. Surely they will wait for the response of the capitalists. By the way big respect for the workers there. Their courage and audacity is incredible.

Its more the insanely clever and effective no bullshit approach brought about by decades of a militant tradition and top boys and girls ready to do what it takes to stand up for their dignity against scum, but courage and audacity certainly has a part to play.

[Soldier of life]

Get the fuck up them:D

[Pogue]

Get the fuck up them:D

i hope you appreciate what this connotes in english

[Soldier of life]

I speak english, so yes:drool:

[shadowmare]

I send the workers my support!
I particularly like the bit about "Bossnapping":laugh:

[Rjevan]

Wow, they definitely have my massive admiration (whatever this is worth)!
What an impressive (and somehow typical and unique French) way to get your payout and the attention of the media, I wish them good luck! Solidarity! :D

[Vincent P.]

Unfortunatly this move has no coherent political or long-term motivation. They want the bill, and apparently not common ownership of whatever.

But this is still kickass propaganda by the deed. I hope it will give people more dirty ideas.

I wonder if Daniel Mermet's La-bas si j'y suis will mention it soon.

[Pogue]

Unfortunatly this move has no coherent political or long-term motivation. They want the bill, and apparently not common ownership of whatever.

But this is still kickass propaganda of the deed. I hope it will give people more dirty ideas.

I wonder if Daniel Mermet's La-bas si j'y suis will mention it soon.

Good luck finding a strike which has as its demand 'Communism pls'.

[Axle]

Much respect and solidarity.

American autoworkers have a lot to learn from these men and women.

[9]

The French have a certain kind of chutzpeh that I have always found truly remarkable - it is so alien to the American worker, unfortunately.

[RHIZOMES]

Unfortunatly this move has no coherent political or long-term motivation. They want the bill, and apparently not common ownership of whatever.

Yup that's how the revolution will happen. The working class and the left does nothing at all then suddenly the workers will be like "Yep I think I've had enough of this capitalism time to overthrow it".

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Unfortunatly this move has no coherent political or long-term motivation. They want the bill, and apparently not common ownership of whatever.

But this is still kickass propaganda by the deed. I hope it will give people more dirty ideas.

I wonder if Daniel Mermet's La-bas si j'y suis will mention it soon.

It definitely isn't that. Please don't mention that failed tactic.

[Charles Xavier]

If the machines are destroyed though the state wont be able to nationalize the plant.

[Pogue]

If the machines are destroyed though the state wont be able to nationalize the plant.

Sabotage is a brilliant tool for the working class to threaten the bosses with still.

Also, fuck nationalising, we want workers control, not state control.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I wish the demand would be worker control, even if phased in over time.

[Pogue]

I wish the demand would be worker control, even if phased in over time.

How could you strike over worker control? You just take it. Thats the point.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

It is very good to see that workers in France are using increasingly radical tactics, like this one and "bossnaping." Even if their demands are not radical, this is a great step forward.

[bellyscratch]

This might be starting to catch on:thumbup1:


Workers threaten to blow up another factory

Workers at Nortel France join the gas cylinder gang but their threats may be empty.

Workers at the French arm of telecommunications manufacturer Nortel placed gas cylinders in front of the plant in Yvelines, near Paris, where 467 out of 683 jobs will be lost following bankruptcy proceedings started in North America.

The cylinders turned out to be empty but it's unknown whether they will stay that way.

The workers are demanding better redundancy packages. Some sources report that they are demanding up to 100,000 euros severance pay.

http://libcom.org/news/workers-threaten-blow-another-factory-15072009

[Charles Xavier]

Sabotage is a brilliant tool for the working class to threaten the bosses with still.

Also, fuck nationalising, we want workers control, not state control.

My point still stands. If the machines are destroyed there would be no worker control either.

[Pogue]

My point still stands. If the machines are destroyed there would be no worker control either.

Of course, but threatening it is a major tool for the workers.

[Misanthrope]

Great to see this kind of spirit in modern day!

[LeninKobaMao]

You can always count on the French to do something daringly awesome.

[ls]

My point still stands. If the machines are destroyed there would be no worker control either.

No your point doesn't stand, you said nationalising it, do you actually know what you're talking about at all?

[Marx22]

Destroying the plant would end the profits for the bourgeois coming from that plant; they will no longer be able to exploit workers in that particular factory. It takes away power from the bourgeois.

I wouldn't throw out Amaru yet, he has a point minus the nationalization part. Workers are supposed to control the machines themselves so that they will be able control the production of goods for the society, for the common good not for profit and self-gain like the bourgeois.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Destroying the plant would end the profits for the bourgeois coming from that plant; they will no longer be able to exploit workers in that particular factory. It takes away power from the bourgeois.

I wouldn't throw out Amaru yet, he has a point minus the nationalization part. Workers are supposed to control the machines themselves so that they will be able control the production of goods for the society, for the common good not for profit and self-gain like the bourgeois.

This is the point both Pogue and Is were making to counter Tupac's nationalisation theory.

[redarmyfaction38]

http://libcom.org/news/french-factory-workers-threaten-blow-factory-12072009

I love the French! :D

me too!
its the workers version of the "big bang" and fuck you theory :D

[redarmyfaction38]

It is very good to see that workers in France are using increasingly radical tactics, like this one and "bossnaping." Even if their demands are not radical, this is a great step forward.
boss napping....ffs!
if that isn't a challenge to whole capitalist economic and moral system, i don't know what is!
it's workers power and fuck the consequences........
i can live with that.

[bellyscratch]

UPDATE


French 'explosion-threat' workers win redundancy pay

A group of French workers facing layoffs obtained extra money after threatening to blow up industrial equipment at their plant, labor union representatives said on Friday. Meanwhile, workers at two other companies continue their threats to blow up their workplaces.

The workers, at JLG, a manufacturing company, were the third in France to make similar threats this month, after workers from Nortel, the telecommunications equipment maker, and New Fabris, a car parts maker.

JLG workers at three plants in southwestern France had been on strike for three weeks over a management plan to lay off 53 of them. After hearing news of the threats made at Nortel and New Fabris, they followed suit.
On Wednesday, the JLG workers placed four of the company’s products — large platform cranes with a total value estimated at $352,400 — in a car park and surrounded them with gas cylinders and kindling.

After talks that lasted well into Thursday night, management met their demand that laid-off workers receive 30,000 euros, or about $42,300, in compensation, and the strikers removed the gas cylinders and returned the cranes to the factory, said Christian Amadio, a JLG worker representative.

At Nortel, talks with management resumed, while workers at New Fabris are still threatening to blow up their factory. New Fabris workers have given a 31st July deadline for Renault and Peugeot, which provided 90% of the plant's work, to pay them 30,000 euros each.

Such threats signal a new escalation in tactics used by disgruntled French workers after episodes in which managers were detained by employees on company premises.

Authorities have used tough language to denounce such actions but have refrained from sending in the police to break up protests. France has a history of labor unrest, and the government wants to avoid an escalation of violencehttp://libcom.org/news/french-explosion-threat-workers-win-redundancy-pay-18072009

[Misanthrope]

Fantastic news, hopefully this trend spreads.

[PRC-UTE]

Here's Al Jazeera on it: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/07/2009717174533293202.html

[Mather]

They have my full support.

Good luck to them and hopefully they will inspire more workers in France to resist by whatever means they choose, the capitalist assault on living and working conditions.