Social terrorism breaks out in closure disputes

Download article in original language : FR0008186FFR.DOC

During summer 2000, at a time when the French press was filled with headlines proclaiming the success of the economy, industrial relations news was dominated by stories of grim labour disputes. Starting at the Cellatex plant in the Ardennes, where workers threatened to blow up the factory, employees in a number of plants faced with closure used similar tactics in order to press for better severance packages.

Summer 2000 has seen a number of high-profile industrial disputes involving threats of dramatic and violent action by workers in plants threatened by closure, starting at the Cellatex company.

The events at Cellatex

On 5 July 2000, the workforce at the Cellatex rayon-spinning plant at Givet in the Ardennes occupied the plant, which was due for closure. The 153 employees came up with a novel pressure tactic. Spinning rayon requires hazardous chemicals, of which 46 tonnes of copper sulphide, 90 tonnes of caustic soda and 56,000 litres of sulphuric acid were stockpiled at the plant. These products could potentially be used as explosives and the plant's workforce threatened to "blow up" the plant, if their demands for FRF 150,000 severance pay per employee and two years' guaranteed pay were not met.

The office of the Ardennes prefect (the central government's département-level representative) treated this threat very seriously and took the precaution of evacuating local residents. The explosives stored in the plant were allegedly sufficient to completely destroy an area within a 500-metre radius around the plant, which could produce a disaster on the scale of Seveso- the accident at an Italian chemical plant that killed over 1,000 people. On 17 July, the plant's workforce turned up the pressure by discharging sulphuric acid into a nearby stream. This catapulted the dispute into the national spotlight. The CGT trade union confederation dispatched the secretary of its textiles federation, Christian Larose, to the plant and asked the Minister for Employment, Martine Aubry, also to go.

The prevailing attitude to this unusual type of action - which in the words of sociologist, Michel Wieviorka, was "nothing short of terrorist blackmail" - was one of astonishment or even disbelief. Some, such as the Minister of the Interior, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, or the Green party spokesperson, who was appalled to see the environment held to ransom, condemned the workers' actions. As for Ms Aubry, she said that "people in despair deserve to be heard."

In any event, talks were reconvened in the evening of 19 July, at the Ardennes prefect's office in Charleville-Mézières. The climate had changed and two Ministry for Employment officials attended the negotiations. They lasted well into the night and resulted in a draft agreement guaranteeing each employee severance benefits of FRF 80,000 and 80% of their present salary for a period of 12 months. This package was to be supplemented by an additional two-year allowance of up to FRF 2,500 per month.

The threats had worked, even if in the end they turned out to be a bluff. The employees later revealed that the detonation system had never in fact existed, while the 3,500 litres of acid dumped into the stream might be seen as a drop in the ocean compared to the regular operations of this extremely environmentally-unfriendly plant. On 1 June 2000, between 10,000 and 65,000 litres were accidentally discharged. It could be said that the factory had been exempted from implementing the necessary anti-pollution measures, considered overly expensive, for the sake of jobs.

The road that finally led to this desperate type of industrial action had been a long one. Initially, the Cellatex plant was a subsidiary of Rhône-Poulenc. It was sold off in 1991 and subsequently experienced numerous setbacks, including flooding in 1995 and filing bankruptcy for the first time in 1998. The factory was bought by the Austrian-based Glanzstoff group, which quickly offloaded it, not without first taking away a major customer and the manufacturing process for one type of viscose thread. Consequently, the workforce felt that outsiders were thronging to divide up the spoils. Throughout the dispute, there was talk of a potential buy-out by the German-based group H2O Active, to which Cellatex supplies rayon for the manufacture of medical anti-bacterial fabrics. H2O Active is the only company in the world to manufacture such a product. However, this buy-out never materialised.

Apart from the lack of an alternative commercial plan, the situation was exacerbated by the region's 22% unemployment rate and limited retraining opportunities for workers. Initial proposals made to the Cellatex workforce were seen as tantamount to provocation. The prefect promised workers a monthly compensation package of FRF 2,500 for a period of 24 months and 10 months' paid retraining leave, worth 65% of their previous salary. In addition to employee pressure tactics, one of the keys to resolving the dispute was the fact that the government stepped in to persuade the Aventis group (formerly Rhône-Poulenc and the pre-1991 owner of Cellatex), to take on (discreetly) a share of the funding for the redundancy plan.

Chain reaction

The events at Cellatex prompted workers in other companies to take similar extreme action. The first example was at the Adelshoffen brewery in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg. On 13 April 2000, the owner of the brewery, the Dutch-based Heineken group, announced that the plant was to close with the loss of 101 jobs. The dispute erupted on 19 July at a raucous session of the works council. A sit-in was organised and the employees threatened to blow up canisters of gas. Management received an initial ultimatum to respond by 20 July, which was subsequently extended by three days and finally suspended on the promise of an extraordinary session of the group-level works council. On 24 July, the striking workers spilled 21,000 litres of beer in the main street in Schiltigheim. Talks were convened the following day. Heineken offered FRF 88 million for redundancy compensation packages, ranging from FRF 75,000 for those transferred elsewhere in the company to FRF 330,000 for those to whom no firm offer of employment was made. The plant will close on 1 September 2000 as planned.

Soon afterwards, workers at the Forgeval steel works in Valenciennes threatened to blow up the acetylene supply to the plant's 15 furnaces. However, they were evicted by the police and union delegates had to accept a less favourable agreement. Then, employees at the Bertrand Faure factory in Nogent-sur-Marne threatened to set fire to their sewing machines in protest at a plan to relocate the manufacture of car seat coverings to Tunisia. On 2 August, after a week-long strike, talks were convened and a redundancy plan approved by the plant's 236 workers was hammered out. It provides for a retraining agreement, supplemented by a compensation package of between 17 and 23 months' wages.

Commentary

Apart from the "domino effect", which was undoubtedly a factor, the various disputes outlined above have some shared characteristics. The most striking of these is a certain degree of despair, leading employees to take "extreme" measures, often without giving trade union delegates any input. These workers feel that the economic recovery is passing them by. They work in shrinking sectors, in older plants and in regions of high unemployment. When all around them are celebrating renewed economic growth, they feel disenfranchised. They also feel that they have exhausted all the traditional types of industrial action to try to save their jobs. Successive redundancy plans have meant concessions. For the sake of jobs, many employees have agreed to wage freezes and increasingly intensive work requirements. They have gradually lost any illusions they had of potential retraining. Extreme measures, such as violent blackmail are solely geared to securing the best possible severance package. Events have shown that, to a certain extent, this was arguably a clear-headed approach. (Michel Husson, IRES)