Employees at a French branch of the German industrial giant, Siemens, have taken two managers hostage in a protest over proposed job cuts.
Workers at Siemens VAI Metals Technologies were upset at plans to cut the current 600 jobs at two plants in the Rhone-Alpes region to 360. Another factory at Saint-Chamond, near Lyon, is to be shut down entirely.
The two managers who have been taken prisoner are the financial director and the head of personnel.
"Indecent" offer
A local union leader, Georges Boncompain, told reporters that his colleagues found the reduction in staffing levels too high and the proposed amount of compensation, "indecent."
The French industry minister, Christian Estrosi, condemned the incident at Siemens VAI and called on the workers to release the managers immediately. "There can be no negotiation while there is violence," he told France Inter radio.
"Boss-napping" in France is very much in mode. Over the past year there have been a number of similar incidents where disgruntled workers have held managers to publicize their displeasure at restructuring plans. Senior staff at various well-known international groups such as Sony, Caterpillar and 3M, have been held against their will.
In spite of French President Sarkozy's reputation for being short-tempered with industrial disputes, the boss-nappers are often successful in getting their demands answered.
td/Reuters/dpa/ap
Editor: Michael Lawton

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
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1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
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3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

It's interesting to note that (Based on this article) boss napping actually seems to produce results. Perhaps it's the employees way of showing that they won't let corporate greed ruin their livelihoods. (That is to say that these companies have ways of keeping these jobs but the bean counters figure that cutting employees is a quick and easy solution)

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1990 300SEL Smoke Silver (Parting out)
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"The thing is Bob, its not that I'm lazy...its that I just don't care."

It really just shows that greed happens on all levels-
In western Europe, standard pay is about 1.5 times what it is in the US, PLUS a three to four week vacation is standard, and six to eight weeks common. There was a whole big stink about it around the turn of the century- A bunch of elderly people died in France in a heat wave because a sizeable portion of the country was on vacation. The morgues were overfilled because people weren't coming back from their trips early to claim the bodies, and there were many anonymous burials.