jlg france ‘explosion threat’: putting the squeeze on management

Workers at platform-crane manufacturer JLG in south west France won a 30,000 euro pay-out for each of 53 staff made redundant after three weeks of strike action. The tactics employed by the workers – including blocking a high-speed TGV train in a station and placing gas canisters around four cranes on site, threatening to blow them up – won wide attention in the French press and, as this Sud Ouest article demonstrates, showed the value of determined collective action.

“They had no other choice.” Christian Amadio, secretary of the comité d’entreprise at JLG France, is modest in success, despite the oviations by dozens of workers waiting outside the Tonneins mayor’s office until after 1am on Thursday-Friday night. The negotiations were long – more than 7 hours – and bitter. But they paid off in the end. “We won what we fought for. No more.” The agreement is based on a 30,000 euro pay-out for each of 53 workers who will be laid off according to plans announced by the platform-crane manufacturer in April. The names of the laid off workers will be announced in mid-September.