Workers in France Resort to Violence to Obtain Severance
Company's used to offer fired employees a severance package to soften the blow and help people survive until a new job is obtained. But companies are cutting back on severance and employees are often left with nothing. In France, workers are fighting back with threats of violence.
A new severance negotiation tactic is emerging in France. Disgruntled workers facing lay offs are gaining leverage with threats to destroy factories or equipment. 53 workers slated for termination at JLG, a French manufacturing firm, surrounded company cranes with gas cylinders and kindling and then went to the negotiating table. Their prior efforts to obtain severance peacefully failed, but when they installed the gas cylinders the company offered the workers a $42,000 severance package.
The JLG workers were following a group of fired Nortel employees. The Nortel employees demanded severance payments, but the company refused. The workers have now threatened to blow up the factory if they do not get severance. Nortel is still negotiating with the workers. Also, managers at New Fabris, a French car parts maker, are facing hostile threats from a group of fired workers who are demanding severance payments.
Here in America I have not heard of employees banding together and threatening harm in order to obtain severance. At my law firm, we get calls everyday from employees who have been fired and offered little or no severance. Most of the time, we cannot help them because the laws in America do not provide employees with rights to severance. Many European countries, by contrast, have laws that require severance payments, but not in America.
