Management Toolkit

French to strike over HP job cuts?

Staff ZDNet France

Published: 15 Sep 2005 16:30 BST

After HP's recent announcement that it will be laying off 1,240 staff in France, a number of trade unions are calling for the company's entire workforce in the country to strike on 16 September.

The trade unions said they want to express their objections to the management's strategy on the day when Patrick Starck, head of HP in France, will be meeting with the French labour minister.

Staff at HP in Grenoble and in l'Isle d'Abeau in the Isère region have already won the support of a number of local MPs and other political representatives. In a statement, the employees said they "strongly denounce the brutality and extent of this unacceptable and incomprehensible decision.

"We don't accept decisions that consider workers as a cost like any other and we will support their action unreservedly."

A number of layoffs have been announced in other European countries: 968 redundancies are scheduled for the UK, and 1,500 — 16 percent of the HP workforce in the country — will lose their jobs in Germany.