Word: unionizers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Despite the pressure of Chrysler's April 30 deadline to pull off a rescue package - or face potential bankruptcy - the United Auto Workers has been in no rush to make concessions. "As I see it, the United Auto Workers union has a choice. They can [shed] some jobs or they can take a pay cut," says a financial consultant based in Detroit. "Naturally when you're faced with two bad choices, there is a natural tendency to procrastinate...
...foot dragging on Chrysler is affecting GM, too. In a Friday conference call with the media, GM chairman Fritz Henderson lamented that GM's own union negotiations are being slowed because the UAW won't move forward until the Chrysler/Fiat negotiations are resolved. That makes sense: Whatever terms Chrysler gets will be a precedent for GM, too. GM faces a June 1 deadline from the U.S. government to produce sufficient cuts to ensure viability...
...last month alone, employees and union officials have held no less than five company CEOs captive after they had announced major staff cuts or plant closures. On March 31, PPR president Fran?ois-Henri Pinault had to be rescued by police after outraged staff surrounded his car following the disclosure of 1,200 job eliminations throughout his distribution group. Such exceptional French acts of intimidation didn't begin with the current recession. Bossnappings have been occurring sporadically in France in response to major staff cuts since 2000, after having been central to frequent factory occupations by radical labor unions...
...occupation of airport runways by striking Air France workers to stop flights for days, and the paralysis of French highways by protesting truck drivers. Similar dismay resounded abroad at images of French farmers, angered by the import of cheaper goods, capturing trucks from the U.K., Spain, and other European Union countries and dumping or burning their cargo - which often included live animals...
...Ironically, the weakness of French unions also explains their explosiveness. Less than 8% of French workers belong to a union - a figured dwarfed by averages elsewhere in Europe and even by America's relatively low 14% level. Worse still, small French unions are bitterly divided among themselves and tend to be dislocated from sector to sector. The result, Groux says, is French management often ignores them while preparing for layoffs and remains high-handed once negotiating begins. All that, he says, increases the allure and utility of insurrectional action - and pushes the limits of dramatic protest over time...