What the hell, France?!

[bhsup]

Can someone explain to me why any foreign company would willingly set up business in France, after reading this article?

Goodyear managers freed at French plant

Workers at a Goodyear plant in Northern France have released two managers held captive since Monday morning in a dispute over the plant's closure.

The director of production at the site in Amiens, Michel Dheilly, and human resources chief Bernard Glaser had not been allowed to leave the plant site.

They were released on Tuesday afternoon minutes after police entered the plant.

...

French workers have a history of holding managers captive, although so called "boss-nappings" were more common during the height of the financial crisis.

Companies including 3M, Sony and Caterpillar were affected in 2009.

Although France has a penalty of up to five years in prison and a 75,000-euro fine for holding a person against their will for less than seven days, it is rarely enforced.

It's called kidnapping, and considering that the Frenchies obviously were not willing to do any thing about it, I am kind of appalled that USA didn't send in special forces to rescue them.

Way to go, France. Become Iran circa 1979.

 

[Adjuvant]

I've been asking the same thing about China for decades. When this happens there, actually, management are lucky if they live.

 

[warpus]

People will do anything to make a buck, including living in god awful places like France.

 

[JollyRoger]

You would think that if a company let's its relationship withg its employees deteriorate to such a point, that France would at least fine the company or something.

 

[Lord of Elves]

This is what's called healthy labor-capital relations. Aux armes, citoyens!

 

[Zelig]

Because there are good companies that don't have managers.

 

[Azale]

If the workers managed the factory, then they'd have only themselves to kidnap.

The average Frenchman seems to live better than the average German, American, or Brit so apparently they're not hurting for investment.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

The average Frenchman seems to live better than the average German, American, or Brit so apparently they're not hurting for investment.

What makes you say that?
France has a lower gdp (PPP) per capita than any of those. Though that may be offset by its more equal income distribution to some extend. Though Germany got actually a better gini (UK and US not by some margin)
Then again, I have the feeling the French work a lot less than the Germans.
So overall maybe you are right.

 

[Traitorfish]

It depends who you theorise the whole thing. If you look at it as a collective process, it's a breakdown in the relationship between employees and employers. If you look at is an individual process, it's a specific act of violence by one set of individuals against another set of individuals. In most of the world, the tradition is to understand it as the former, because that's really the only way you can locate it in any sort of context, and attempt to build structure which keep these contending forces in check. (Or, if you're of a more radical bent, subvert those structures.) The individual dimension will be noted, sure, not least by those actually involved, but it tends to appear as basically secondary when developing formal responses. because it isn't actually going to help anybody resolve anything. It's only really in the English-speaking world, which in the last thirty years have been developed a strange attachment to neo-Victorian individualism, that it appears simply as the calamity Bhsup imagines it to be, in which the immediate recourse to military force would be anything less than lunatic.

I'd also content that it's very easy to over-state how dramatic this sort of thing actually is, because as the article notes, this is something of a tradition in France, especially in the light manufacturing sector. It's all quite ritualised, a sort of drama more than an actual bargaining tactic. The management understand this, tending to see it as something like involuntary overtime, and are compensated appropriately. It's not something they expect let alone want to happen sure, but they would probably see comparisons to the Iranian hostage crisis, which was without immediate precedent and in which there was a serious risk of the hostages being seriously harmed or killed, as somewhat over-dramatic.


edit: Also, wait,

It's called kidnapping, and considering that the Frenchies obviously were not willing to do any thing about it, I am kind of appalled that USA didn't send in special forces to rescue them.

Way to go, France. Become Iran circa 1979.

You're proposing unilateral military intervention into the purely domestic affairs of a sovereign state, and the French are the ones failing to act like a grown-up country? Do you not see how this might be as a bit of pot-kettle-black situation?

 

[timtofly]

If the workers managed the factory, then they'd have only themselves to kidnap.

The average Frenchman seems to live better than the average German, American, or Brit so apparently they're not hurting for investment.

Would you advise them to brake ties with administration and offer to buy the plant, or force France to dissolve any rights the company has in regards to their property?

 

[civvver]

French definitely work less than those in UK/Germany/USA. Don't you remember a few years ago they raised the retirement age from 60 to 62 in france and there were street riots? Found a link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/violent-protests-in-france-over-retirement-age/

In the USA full government retirement benefits age is 67 for those born after 1960.

 

[Tahuti]

French definitely work less than those in UK/Germany/USA. Don't you remember a few years ago they raised the retirement age from 60 to 62 in france and there were street riots?

In the Netherlands, the retirement age is in the process of being increased towards 67. No one really complained, save for the usual suspects: The Socialist Party, The Freedom Party (Ultra-Nationalist) and 50 Plus (Pensioners "rights"). Not exactly mainstream parties.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

What can i say? Vive la France!

 

[Azale]

Would you advise them to brake ties with administration and offer to buy the plant, or force France to dissolve any rights the company has in regards to their property?

Not sure! I'm not nearly smart enough to dive into the minutiae there so I would just be pulling stuff out of my butt even more than usual, though I guess it's supposed to be a "grassroots socialist kickstarter" vs "tyrannical commie state power dictat" kinda thing.

What makes you say that?
France has a lower gdp (PPP) per capita than any of those. Though that may be offset by its more equal income distribution to some extend. Though Germany got actually a better gini (UK and US not by some margin)
Then again, I have the feeling the French work a lot less than the Germans.
So overall maybe you are right.

French work less, are healthier (iirc), more comprehensive welfare state, just as much if not more social mobility. Their economy is just as robust (or not robust) as Germany's at this point.

That's what I remember reading anyhow

 

[Akka]

Moreover, I'd like to point that PPP doesn't really include the real-life (HUGE) differences in life standards that come from required/hidden costs/savings (like paying your health insurance, having subsidized and as such cheaper transports and the like).

From what I gathered in some threads here (IIRC it was in reference to Walmart employees), it's considered a ridiculous idea to be able to live decently in USA with 1500 $ a month. I'm earning a bit more than that (closer to 2000), but with that I'm able to pay a rent for a whole house with garden and garage all for myself, bought a brand-new car two years ago, and make a comfortable benefit each month on top of that.
Add to all this the invaluable benefit of actually HAVING THE TIME outside work to enjoy all of it (I work 7h30 a day, which means I have about as much available to actually live ).

PPP means little when you have to add hundred of bucks each month in required/hidden costs.

I don't advocate the forceful ways that are described in the OP, but on the whole I think the world would be a MUCH better place if the role-model was more the social one from France, Germany or the Scandinavian countries, instead of the repulsive cutthroat arena "winner-takes-all" cesspit of the anglosphere.

 

[strijder20]

I am kind of appalled that USA didn't send in special forces to rescue them.

Well well well, seems the French are not the only with an anger (at) management issue

 

[Tahuti]

I don't advocate the forceful ways that are described in the OP, but on the whole I think the world would be a MUCH better place if the role-model was more the social one from France, Germany or the Scandinavian countries, instead of the repulsive cutthroat arena "winner-takes-all" cesspit of the anglosphere.

In terms of actual social spending, most Anglophone countries spend significantly more on social spending than Continental European countries. It is not really an unwillingness to build a welfare state, but rather, bad implementation.

Most East-European countries have very limited welfare states and low taxes - in contrast to Anglo-Saxon countries on purpose - but also a fair share of economic overregulation, to a larger degree than the Western European countries. Despite its incompetently implemented welfare state, the USA still has a better business climate than France. Arguably, Denmark's economic system has the best of both worlds.

 

[Light Cleric]

I read about this yesterday in an AP article. I was more disturbed by this part:

Two Goodyear managers held captive by angry French workers were freed Tuesday after police intervened, ending a two-day standoff over the factory's bleak future.

The release outraged union members, who made a bonfire of tires in front of the plant. It also left unresolved the larger problems that have dogged the factory in Amiens in northern France, which Goodyear has tried to sell or shutter for over five years. Union leaders said Tuesday that workers would occupy the factory complex until managers negotiate with them over severance pay.

Even if you're in favor of worker-owned facilities, I'm not sure how the guys getting angry at people being released after being held against their will in clear violation of the law are the "good guys". Change the law if you don't like it.

In the Netherlands, the retirement age is in the process of being increased towards 67. No one really complained, save for the usual suspects: The Socialist Party, The Freedom Party (Ultra-Nationalist) and 50 Plus (Pensioners "rights"). Not exactly mainstream parties.

I sometimes wonder what would happen the if retirement age for Social Security/Medicare here got raised or a raise was proposed because, while I don't suspect riots, if there's one thing the elderly in America do, it's vote. I think at some point it may be necessary because those programs are in horrendous shape and in many ways resemble pyramid schemes to the point that no amount of taxation alone would save them. I really don't want to see what that battle is going to look like. Full of crap Mediscare ads are already far too common.

 

[Akka]

In terms of actual social spending, most Anglophone countries spend significantly more on social spending than Continental European countries. It is not really an unwillingness to build a welfare state, but rather, bad implementation.

And this bad implementation stems from contempt of anything related to the state coupled with a corporate-worship/slave mentality.

And yeah, Scandinavian countries tend to have both high social justice AND good business practices.
Why everyone doesn't shamelessly plagiarize them instead of the US is something I'll never understand.

 

[bhsup]

Well well well, seems the French are not the only with an anger (at) management issue

Well somebody has to step up and teach France how freedom works!