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Angry French Union Workers Take Two Bosses Hostage
Workers at a tire plant in Northern France have taken two managers hostage until Goodyear (the firm that owns the plant and has been trying to shutter it for years) meets the mabor unions demands. WSJ reports, as Goodyear winds down operations with the plant almost idle, French labor law requires the company to keep all workers employed, which means many of them don't work more than a couple of hours a day while still getting full salary. The situation is why Titan International's Maurice Taylor blasted that he "would be stupid" to operate the plant on that basis.
As we noted previosuly the tire factory farce escalated a year ago...
The saga of the capitalist vs the socialist goes on with Round 3, following round 1 in which the "Titan CEO Crushes Socialist "Work Ethic", Tells France "You Can Keep Your So-Called Workers" and round 2 in which "Socialist France Responds To Titan CEO, Hilarity Ensues." With the entire "developed" world now a real-time parody of itself, in which the truth about the true state of affairs is only revealed in grotesque, farcical, ad-hominem repartees between various members of the insolvent status quo plutocracy, we can only hope for many more rounds of this didactic back and forth.
Excerpted from Titan CEO Maurice Taylor's follow up letter in response to Arnaud Montebourg's letter responding to Maurice Taylor.
You letter shows the extent to which your political class is out of touch with real world problems.
You call me an extremist, but most businessmen would agree that I must be nuts to have the idea to spend millions of US dollars to buy a tyre factory in France paying some of the highest wages in the world.
Your letter did not mention why the French government has not stepped in to rescue this Goodyear tyre factory.
The extremist, Mr Minister, is your government and the lack of knowledge about how to build a business.
Your government let the wackos of the communist union destroy the highest paying jobs.
At no time did Titan ask for lower wages; we asked only if you want seven hours pay, you work at least six.
France does have beautiful women and great wine.
PS: My grandmother named my father after French entertainer Maurice Chevalier, and I inherited the name.
I have visited Normandy with my wife. I know what we did for France.
But now, Goodyear is entangled in legal proceedings with unions representing workers, led by the communist-backed CGT... and their actions have re-escalated... (via WSJ)
Workers at a Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. factory in northern France prevented two managers from leaving the facility on Monday, the latest in a string of protests by union members who were accused by a U.S. executive last year of doing little work.
...
Mickaël Wamen, a union representative, said the managers would be held until workers get a satisfactory response to their requests. He said the managers already have been informed that they will spend the night at the site.
Goodyear, of Akron, Ohio, has been trying to shut the plant for several years, but is entangled in legal proceedings with unions representing workers, led by the communist-backed CGT. Efforts to sell the factory to U.S. tire maker Titan International Inc. hit the headlines last year, after Titan Chief Executive Maurice Taylor blasted French labor laws and work habits.
As Goodyear winds down operations and the plant almost idle, French labor law requires the company to keep all workers employed, which means many of them don't work more than a couple of hours a day while still getting full salary.
The situation enraged Mr. Taylor, who dropped the first offer he had made for the plant and told France's industry minister that he would be "stupid" to operate in a country where workers get high wages for little work.
...
Tense labor relations in France were exacerbated by the financial crisis, leading to a string of so-called boss-nappings. In 2009, when industrial companies started retrenching their operations, managers at the French plants of several foreign firms, including Caterpillar Inc., Sony Corp. and 3M Co., were held captive by workers angry at being laid off.
As we warned earlier, this can and will only lead to the triple-dip recession in France as industrial production continues to slump. We strongly urge Detroit's Kevyn Orr to get a bodyguard...
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Management should make the Occupy Wall Street types managers at their French tire factory. Voila! they can take each other hostage and demand a living wage.
The opposite is slave wages and 80hrs a week. Take your side I guess. Can't seem to hit middle ground anywhere.
The middle ground used to be the ideals founded in the USA, then trounced in 1913 by the internationalists.
End the Fed. There will be no evolution otherwise. Revolution is a bloody poor alternative.
Yech where have all these Luddites come from. Have some imagination sheep. You gotta be a real loser if you worry about automation. Ride the wave. Don't bitch about it as it passes you by sitting forlornly by your spinning wheel.....
Change the pension rules to state that only the hostages can sign pension checks in the United States.
For fucks sake.
effin hobolos
Send in Le Pinkertons
Taking out the buyers will get you nothing, there is always another buyer. You need to focus on the sellers, the government; they are the ones that have earned our disgust.
Unions and governments are the same; middle men living off the backs of others. In very limited amounts, both can work well, but I haven't seen a limited union or limited government in my lifetime. And I'm an old fart.
Kudos MSO. Unions & governments have the same problem: Extortion. The more wealth they get, the more power they have, the more they have the more they want (it's for their children)-then more so they can control others. If I was in a position of accumulating wealth to such a degree and never had to worry about rent, food but what high priced call girl to shag that week, I might follow the same path. I like to think I wouldn't, but.. I probably will never know, since I'm not in a position at this time to find out.
Sad that the Roman & American Empire started out so well, had their fits and starts and glory days..then, well the book is still being written. Peace be unto you MSO.
It's always amusing reading comments by the defenders of French unions (enabled by their political bed pals) that DO NOT WANT TO WORK. They make the UAW in the U.S. look like worker bees. Doing business with French companies, at least in the automotive sector, is a gamble in itself getting paid for that last 10%; they do everything possible to delay and will employ every dirty tactic to not pay. That's why my company now refuses to except any RFQ for building machines for Ford France.
Yep, I'm one of the asshole Americans that knows what I'm talking about. Been there, done that.
Ford is not a French company (It has American management)
Try to work with Renault-Nissan Group
BTW Renault-Nissan Group sold 8.1 million cars worldwide in 2012 - more than Ford 5.67 million cars ;-)
goodyear ceo made 33 fucking million dollars in 2012. http://insiders.morningstar.com/trading/executive-compensation.action?t=GT
can't bothered to look up 2013 because i might vomit.
Goodyear has 72,000 employees. If the CEO was paid nothing, every employee would get an extra $458/year, roughly a $0.22/h raise. It's really not the end of the world.
On par with "Tax the Rich!"
USA has ~70 Trillion in debt/liabilities.
If you took all the wealth from American Billionaires,
you'd barely pay off 5% of those debts/liabilities.
It's math, not politics.
Kidnapping the boss worked for Chevy. Got a 20% extra bonus that year.
I always wondered if he got to keep the jellies too....
The lack of ones own ability for creativity dealing with adversity through a civilized behavioral response; often rather than not, leads to a violent end-all-means.
Read On War,
"The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation form their purposes." - Carl von Clausewitz
https://pathofmusashi.wordpress.com/
Musashi is just another bitcoin proponent
The action of this union gives a new kind of confirmation bias to the opinion of the Titan CEO.
I'm surprised that Goodyear hasn't replace their executive with a Union
shop steward, so the union members can kidnap one of their own.
Comment of the end of Maurice Taylor's letter: "I have visited Normandy with my wife. I know what we did for France"
The Americans like to believe it to glorify themselves, but this is a myth - History rewritten by Hollywood.
In 1939 and 1940 France was let alone (apart from only 8 British divisions, which succeeded to quickly re-embark at Dunkirk thanks to the sacrifice of the soldiers of the 1st French Army of the North ).
France was let alone facing a nazi-fanaticized country with a population of 80 million (vs. 40 million in France), a particularly well prepared war-industry, and an air superiority of 5 vs 1.
At the same time the “US ally” refused to sell planes on credit to France !
The landing in Normandy didn't occur before June of 1944 (5 five years later), after other landings in North Africa, Sicilia and Italia. And only because it was better to fight their enemy in Europe than in America, after the declaration of war against them by Germany and Italy.
And the US never faced mor than 15% of the Wehrmacht – 80% were in the East - when France had to face alone 100% of Hitler's war machine in 1940.
But, on the way, they liberated France, and most Fench are still grateful for that. It is why they invite American representatives every year to the memorial in Normandy for the remembering of D-Day June 6, 1944.
On the other hand, the 5,000 sailors of the French Navy who died for US Independence at the battle of the Chesapeake are still waiting for their memorial in Washington … And I have never heard that French representatives were formally invited to the celebrations of the Yorktown victory (where half of the fighters were French soldiers led by the Comte de Rochambeau), or at the 4th of July celebrations … Pitiful lack of memory.