Aberdeen Bus Strike, Jaguar Jobs and French Workers Threaten To Blow Up Factory

Aberdeen Bus Strike
Talks at Acas failed to resolve the First Bus dispute in Aberdeen and a one day strike is taking place today (Thursday).
Unite members will be demonstrating at the First Group AGM in Aberdeen at Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre. 70% of Unite members voted to back the strike.

Unite demands urgent Government support for Jaguar - Halewood
The Government must support Jaguar Land Rover's (JLR) application for financial support as a "matter of urgency", Unite has said after the premium car maker announced 300 job cuts.
 JLR is to cease production of the X-Type Jaguar, known as the baby Jaguar, by the end of the year at the Halewood plant in Merseyside and will seek voluntary redundancies.
The company will also shut down the plant, which employs around 2,000 staff, for at least three weeks between September and December, as JLR suffers in the recession with sales down 28%.
Unite is demanding that the £300 million loan for investment in green technology, approved in April, must be underwritten by the Government. However, terms with JLR, which is owned by India's Tata Motors, are yet to be agreed, with the Government believed to be seeking conditions that would give them significant power in the running of the company.

And finally.........
French Workers Threaten To Blow Up Factory
On Monday this week French workers barricaded themselves inside a car parts factory which has gone bust and said they would blow the plant up with gas canisters unless they receive a bigger pay-off.

“Are we capable of blowing up the factory?” asked CGT union official Guy Eyermann during a meeting of about a hundred workers who have been occupying the factory in Chatellerault for several weeks. “Yes, we are capable.”

They insisted the string of gas canisters they have strung together are full - despite claims from officials that they are bluffing with depressurised gas bottles - and will be used to blow up the plant if necessary.

“Let them come and see,” said Eyermann. “These are serious threats.”

The small east-central town on Monday beefed up emergency services, bringing in extra firefighters to the local emergency centre, after the workers at the New Fabris plant set a July 31 deadline for their demands to be met.

The 366 workers said on Sunday they would carry out their threat unless carmakers Renault and PSA-Peugeot - who accounted for 90 per cent of business - pay them 30,000 euro each when they lose their jobs.

The threat comes after a recent wave of “bossnappings” across France earlier this year in which managers have been held hostage by workers over factory closures.

The Chatellerault factory houses car parts worth an estimated two million euros, as well as a new Renault machine believed to be worth a further two million, Eyermann said.

The workers have blockaded the entrance to try to stop any attempt to take the equipment out.

The New Fabris workers, whose employer was declared bankrupt on June 16, claim that Renault and Peugeot paid around 30,000 euros each to 200 workers laid off from another supplier, the aluminium specialist Rencast.

But both Renault and Peugeot said Monday it was not their responsibility to pay out compensation to the New Fabris workers.

PSA Peugeot-Citroen does “not have to take the place of the state or of share-holders,” a spokesman said.

A Renault spokesman also said that the carmaker, like Peugeot, had already helped Fabris financially but should not be expected to pay compensation to the firms’ workers.

Eyermann said two coachloads of workers visited Peugeot headquarters last week and a similar delegation would go Thursday to visit Renault bosses and the employment ministry to try to negotiate a settlement.

They hope to force the state to put pressure on the carmakers, which both received public funds to help them through the global downturn.

New Fabris company director Pierre Reau said that currently the firm would only able to pay between 10,000 and 15,000 euro in redundancy to workers with 20 or more years experience, and some junior workers would get just 3000 euro.

“I understand their distress,” he said, adding that a dramatic and sudden fall in orders had led to the company’s downfall.

Founded in 1947 by two brothers, Eugene and Quentin Fabris, New Fabris started out making sewing machine parts, before branching out into the auto sector, employing up to 800 workers in the 1990s.