28 February, 2011
In France, European paper and packaging giant SmurfitKappa was made to move up on a 2011 wage offer for 2,500 corrugated packaging workers following a day-long strike on 23 February. The French paperworkers are employed at 18 SmurfitKappa paper plants and French union CGT-FILPAC staged successful strikes at all 18 that increased 2011 earnings.
The agreement calls for a 2.35% wage increase spread across 2011. SmurfitKappa had offered only 1.4% prior to the strike, with half of that – 0.7% -- first due on 1 April. CGT-FILPAC won a one percent on 1 March, with the remainder due sooner this year than the company’s now discarded proposal dates.
The union also won an added increase for lower-salaried workers, effective 1 October 2011, and posted an increase in holiday pay as well.
Last week’s industrial action was the second within a month in the French paper sector over what constitutes a fair 2011 pay increase. Some 400 UPM paperworkers at the Chapelle Darblay newsprint mill had been staging twice-weekly two-hour strikes across all three work shifts to get the Finland-based company to meet French cost-of-living demands.
And to illustrate the deadly risks inside the paper sector, also in France, in late January a contract worker was killed at Emin Leyder’s paperboard mill in Nogent-sur-Seine, Aube, when a gas explosion occurred inside a pulp tower. The 47-year-old contractor was working on the roof of a pulping tower with another worker and was blown off the roof by the blast. The 300,000 tonne-per-year corrugated medium and linerboard mill is the smaller of Emin Leyder’s two French mills, owned by the holding company FINEL SA.