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Employees of Faure et Machet Logistic transport company wait outside the office building, where five managers have been detained by workers - Source: Reuters -
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Workers at a logistics company in northeastern France have detained some of their managers and vowed to keep up the pressure until there was progress in redundancy talks.
Around 125 employees barged into a meeting of FM Logistic in the town of Woippy and initially refused to let five managers leave the premises in the latest case of angry French workers locking up bosses to press their demands.
As evening set in, the workers agreed to free two female managers with young children in exchange for a promise that a human resources executive would visit Woippy to take part in negotiations.
Many workers planned to spend the night at the site.
"We've had enough. We have been in the midst of restructuring since April 2008 and we have been negotiating for a year, if you can call it negotiation, and we haven't managed to make ourselves heard," said protester Bruno Damien.
The incident is another in a series of "bossnappings" by workers as economic crisis bites. Opinion polls suggest that more than half of French people consider them justified.
Government spokesman and junior industry minister Luc Chatel denounced the protest, telling Reuters such action was no way to respond to the economic crisis even if workers were going through terrible times.
FM Logistic plans to do away with 475 jobs in Woippy by May 2010, with 200 redundancies scheduled from June onwards.
Tensions high
Union representatives had submitted around a dozen proposals to management to address lay-off terms or efforts to find new jobs for staff, Damien said.
Management told the workers that confining people was illegal and negotiations would not occur under duress.
"Let's describe things as they really are. They are being held inside rather than kidnapped. They are continuing to speak to each other," said company press officer Catherine Bailly.
The planned redundancies follow a decision by top PC maker Hewlett-Packard Co to shift printer packaging activities to Malaysia instead of using FM Logistic in Woippy.
Staff at French plants run by Britain's Scapa Group Plc, Sony, 3M and Caterpillar Inc have also held managers in company premises to demand better layoff terms.
Tensions ran high at a French Caterpillar plant as nine employees were tried at a local court for allegedly obstructing others' freedom to work.
The verdict was due to be made public on Friday afternoon.
Police were stationed outside the plant on Thursday as some employees planned to camp out by the site amid anger over hundreds of planned layoffs.
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