French strikers hold 3M exec hostage amid talks.....

[madmom]

PITHIVIERS, France (AP) — Striking French workers for U.S. manufacturer 3M held their boss hostage amid labor talks Wednesday at a plant south of Paris, as anger over layoffs and cutbacks mounted around the country.



http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/base/international-1/1237998575261560.xml&storylist=international

[benld74]

1. Vive la France!

[harun]

2. Get'r done France! This is why they have Universal Health Care and we don't.

[NightWatcher]

3. I wonder if we could ever get shit done here

Maybe if we had fewer distractions? Is that why the big corporations/military industrialists own our entertainment consortium (ie GE/MSNBC......). We'll never take to the streets as long as we've got our tv.

[leftstreet]

4. "...we no longer exist for these people"

snips

In France, it is not unheard-of for striking workers to hold company executives as a way of winning concessions from management. The hostages are almost never injured. A similar situation ended peacefully earlier this month at Sony's French facilities.

"We don't have any other ammunition" other than hostage-taking, said Laurent Joly, who has worked at the Pithiviers plant for 11 years and is angry that he is being transferred to another French site.

"I really have the impression that we no longer exist for these people," Genevieve Camus, who has worked for the plant for 35 years, said of the company's U.S. management.

Store owners in Pithiviers were shutting down early on Wednesday to support the factory workers.

Imagine that, citizens supporting each other!