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29 June, 2009
Japanese tyre-maker Bridgestone’s failure to listen to alternatives on redundancies in social talks has caused a fiery strike at the company’s airplane tyre factory in Frameries, Belgium. The strike by all 140 workers and led by ICEM Belgian affiliate FGTB Centrale Générale started on 11 June over eight job cuts.
A day into the strike, trade unionists convinced managers to stay away from the factory and the plant has been idle since.
Bridgestone seeks to unilaterally lay off eight workers. FGTB and the 140 workers say that decision ridicules a plant rule on job security. They also point to the fact that Bridgestone employs 14 workers on short-term contracts at Frameries. The FGTB states that Belgium’s pre-pension plan qualifies 24 workers for leave, but Bridgestone will not consider other solutions to its reduction in force.
The factory is a Bridgestone re-treading plant. The strike at the plant comes at a time when Bridgestone is boasting to global financial markets that its 2009 earnings sheet will be better that previously predicted because of a stronger yen and already-implemented expense reductions.