Farm tires filled the doorway, and the two Goodyear managers were trapped in the conference room with angry workers demanding more money in exchange for the inevitable loss of their jobs. Monday’s meeting was not going well, reports The Washington Post.
Goodyear has tried to shutter the plant in the northern city of Amiens for five years without success. Their latest attempt was met with a “boss-napping,” a French tactic that had largely faded away after the height of the economic crisis in 2009. More theater than actual threat, these aim to grab management’s attention — by grabbing management.
The Amiens plant has an especially contentious past. Goodyear’s hopes to close the plant have been hindered by violent protests that included bonfires of tires, government concerns and France’s prolonged layoff procedures. Now, the union is willing to accept the inevitable loss of jobs — but at a cost.
“Clearly it was no longer possible to keep fighting for our jobs,” Mickael Wamen, the union president, told LCI television. “So we decided to change tactics and fight for the largest compensation possible.”
In exchange for freeing the bosses, they’re demanding 80,000 euros ($108,000) plus 2,500 euros ($3,400) for each year worked. By late in the day, the managers were still trapped.
Read more of this Associated Press report from The Washington Post.