Security workers hired to break strike in car parts plant

Belgian police led away members of a private security force hired by managers at the Meister car parts factory in Sprimont during a dispute in February, after they broke through a picket line hoping to seize a consignment that striking workers were preventing from being dispatched to a customer. The strikers were protesting at the management’s decision to transfer two major orders to its plant in the Czech Republic. Politicians have been particularly critical of the management’s actions.

Background

Meister Benelux is a subsidiary of the German group Poppe+Potthoff. The Sprimont plant, in the Liège region, specialises in the manufacture of high precision car parts, including braking systems, which are used across Europe and the USA. It develops and tests prototypes in its own Technology centre and can set up pilot production lines and both small and medium-sized production lines.

At the end of February, during an extraordinary works council meeting, it was announced that two important orders that should have provided work for much of 2012 would be transferred to the Czech Republic. Workers immediately went on strike. Meetings with management failed to produce a solution despite the appointment of an independent social mediator, and the unions forced the plant to close, asking management not to enter while the action was underway.

Violent reaction

Managers attempted to enter the plant’s offices and were then prevented from leaving for some hours by workers, a practice known as ‘sequestering’ which has become increasingly common in industrial disputes in Belgium in recent years. As in other cases of sequestering, employers organisations and politicians condemned the workers’ action.

A consignment was ready to be despatched, but workers would not allow managers to collect it despite their insistence that it had to be delivered. A few hours later several hatchback cars, containing members of a private security force hired by the management, drove through the picket line in an attempt to seize the consignment. Workers blocked the entrances to the building while union officials called the police, and the security force was escorted off the premises.

Managers condemned

Politicians condemned the management’s use of a security force in this way.

Employer organisations were equally outraged, but also criticised the workers for holding management against their will.

Belgian unions have united to make a criminal complaint, and the actions of the security force are being investigated by police. Other unions across Europe have announced their support for the Meister Benelux workers.

An independent crisis manager has been appointed who will stay at the firm for six months to help rebuild the relationship between managers and workers.Michel Ajzen, Institut des Sciences du Travail, UCL