Sony Workers Hold Execs Hostage Over Pay

CEO, Head Of Human Resources In France Freed After Employees Angered Over Severance Package Give Them Earful

(AP)  Workers at a Sony factory in southwestern France freed two company executives Friday whom they had held to protest the severance package offered for when the plant shuts for good.

Serge Foucher, CEO of Sony France, and Roland Bentz, the head of human resources, had been prevented from leaving the plant since Thursday afternoon.

The Workers' Council representing Sony employees agreed to let the executives out of the plant and to restart talks with management on the severance package. Regional authorities had persuaded the two sides to sit down and negotiate outside the plant.

Talks were under way early Friday afternoon, according to the Workers' Council of the factory.

Patrick Achaguer, a CGT union member at the plant, said the workers want professional training to help them find new jobs and financial help with relocation if they have to move to find work.

"We are all going to be fired. We want to be treated in a dignified manner," he said.

Sony announced in December that it would cut 8,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its global work force, including those at the plant in France, which produces tape and other recording media.

A project will convert it into a solar panels factory, and 311 workers at the plant, south of Bordeaux, are to lose their jobs.

"I will never find a job in my field around here," said Thierry Dussarat, 45, who has worked at the plant for 22 years. "Only big companies employ this kind of staff, and in this region they are rare."

With the closing of the plant, which opened in 1984, Sony will have just one factory in France, near Ribeauville in Alsace.

Sony hopes its global cost-cutting moves will deliver more than 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) in savings a year by March 2010.

[wardoglrs]

The best action for the United States and the rest of the world would be a massive act of peaceful civil disobedience. Stop paying mortgages. Stop paying credit card bills and student loans. It's over. The money you spend now will be money that you wish you had saved (or converted into land, gold, or something of value) Stop paying taxes. And don't give back your keys. Take your homes back and stop funding the government. Take care of yourselves. Do what you have to do to survive because this is your right as a human being. You are not responsible for Wall Street. You are not responsible for any of this. It's collapsing. Don't let them control the outcome. Don't give away your power. Don't give away what few resources you have left to those who created this.

[aka_KJB]

You know, everyone especially here in the US) have been squawking about how this or that will possibly lead to Socialism, like Lenin has risen from the grave and is organizing the revolt. What the money grubbing suits need to worry about is something more like the French Revolution, where the workers and peasants took heads first and asked questions NEVER. The people in charge are so used to not being held accountable for their actions and salaries that they really don't understand the near-violent dislike and distrust being aimed in their general direction. To call them clueless would be a gross understatement.

These major companies that are cutting jobs as cost cutting measures have a responsibility to their employees and should aggressively be trying to find other jobs within the company for those employees or even helping to place them elsewhere, even if it is with a competitor. Right now, the only obligation any of these companies seem to have are for the CEOs that have helped fly them into the proverbial mountain.

[Ordflyer]

Typical of C-level management...All about enrichening themeselves and no cares at all for their country, their families, or other people.

Arrogant B@stards!!!!

[gce651]

NEVER trust corporate management. They exisdt only to enrich themselves first, and shareholders second. They regard workers as little more than capital equipment, and not even as valuable.

Rent and see the movie THE EDUKATORS!

[cheetah-man7]

cheetah-man7... between the 2 comments, your's and mrs conclusion's, your's offended me far more than hers. at a time when people are loosing their jobs and homes because of some pompass a$$e$ (probably like your daddy) out there who stole from the non-entitled, you have the audacity to belittle a whole set of people because are trying to live withing their means shopping at an AMERICAN grocery store chain and living in a house they can afford. You Jerk!

Posted by itgranny
_________________________

First of all..... my humble apologies for offending you personally! You are free to call me a Jerk or anything else you please - that's your constitutional right and I respect your right to think freely.

For the record, "my daddy" had nothing to do with the French, nor did he have any impact on how much US folks earn for their mobile homes and Piggly Wiggly cards. Us Yankee Democrats are losing jobs just as much as the Southern Republicans.

Clearly you have taken pickup trucks, mobile homes, Piggly Wiggly cards, and preaching hatred at Assembly of God's a bit too personally. I must have hit a real nerve with you! I won't assume you live in a mansion or drive a Ferrari 430 and shop at Bergdorf Goodman's.... that's OK..... most of us don't!

Have a wonderful day!

[bajajohn1]

Well at least the French are in Bordeaux, home of the famous wine. They can get drunk on the cheap.

[skyk-2009]

Talk about shooting the messenger! The HR people are employees just like them!
Posted by mnamolina at 10:45 AM : Mar 13, 2009

Are you serious? These people do the hiring and firing and THEY know it. If it's a large company they can hide people and move people around. IF there is MORE corruption in any organization other than the CEO position this has to be it.

[skyk-2009]

Hey this guy should come to the good old USA!! Here they don't even give you warning, just stab you in the back on the way out of town. When you look at what Corporations have done to the American Worker over the last 3 decades, it really is criminal!!

[koko98-2009]

Itgranny,
It's called satire and we need it now more than ever. Humor helps us cope. I bet the guys who flipped out and killed those poor souls in Illinois and Alabama could have taken things less seriously. People who feel like you want them to eventually snap and bad things happen. So let's not be afraid to lighten up people.

[itgranny]

cheetah-man7... between the 2 comments, your's and mrs conclusion's, your's offended me far more than hers. at a time when people are loosing their jobs and homes because of some pompass a$$e$ (probably like your daddy) out there who stole from the non-entitled, you have the audacity to belittle a whole set of people because are trying to live withing their means shopping at an AMERICAN grocery store chain and living in a house they can afford. You Jerk!

[cheetah-man7]

If they really wanted to punish that dude in France they should take his smokes away and make him bathe everyday. That would kill him.

Posted by koko98-2009
___________________________

Yes, and made them use deodorant too! That would have been worse than Chinese water torture! LOL

[koko98-2009]

If they really wanted to punish that dude in France they should take his smokes away and make him bathe everyday. That would kill him.

[mnamolina]

Talk about shooting the messenger! The HR people are employees just like them!

[jpwalsh123]

Vive la France. Vive les travailleurs!

[otiswestfall]

They should have killed the CEO, the HR VP, and the entire HR department. That might eliminate some of the smugness experienced by job seekers when communicating with HR people.

[aeasus]

YEAH for frwench labor!! WTG

[clancy49]

Way to go Frenchie! Vive la France. Go show the real power of the worker! We Americans need another Lafayette.

[I_am_me1953]

This is an outrage! The government should call out the army and have them fire bullets on the lower classes to keep them in their place.
Posted by mrs_conclusion at 6:39 AM : Mar 13, 2009
____________________

Gee troll you are up and about today aren't you.

Good luck on finding victims.

[cheetah-man7]

This is an outrage! The government should call out the army and have them fire bullets on the lower classes to keep them in their place.

Posted by mrs_conclusion
_________________________________

Oh come now, Mrs. Concrete..... isn't that somewhat hypocritical of you to say? I somehow see you living in a mobile home and shopping at Piggly Wiggly.... Lower class huh?

[omega39-2009]

Unfortunately, the "cradle to grave" employment concept has gone the way of the 8-track.

You can no longer expect to have one job for twenty years and then retire. While buying a home and putting two children through college. It just doesn't work like that anymore.
Posted by barbaraf4

That is what Bush's ownership society was all about. You own your own retirement, unemployment and health saving account and all of that money would be invested in the crooked markets. The people of this country have been duped and it serves them right, most are too stupid to look out for their own best interests.