A little French lesson
WORKERS, MAR 2008 ISSUE
The news has trickled through (good news rarely travels fast) of the action of French workers last month striking back at plans to shift their jobs to Slovakia, where wages are lower.
Workers at the factory, owned by the British car parts company BRS, noticed suspicious lorries outside the plant one Saturday. Fearing a scheme to remove machinery, they promptly took their British boss hostage and held him until Monday morning. "He wasn’t very pleasant at first, then he accepted he had no choice," said one of the workers.
A salutory lesson for British capitalists, who think they can go anywhere in Europe and do anything – and for British workers, who let them behave like this in Britain.