French Workers Occupy Kimberly-Clark Plant

French workers have occupied a factory belonging to US-based paper products multinational Kimberly-Clark, in a bid to prevent closure of the plant.
The occupation follows an emergency meeting of the Kimberly-Clark European Works Council in London this Tuesday 6 January. At that session, according to the French workers' union FCE-CFDT, management told union representatives of restructuring measures concerning, notably, plants in the UK (Sealand), the Czech Republic (Litovel) and France (Saint-Cyr en Val).

For the Saint-Cyr en Val site, near Orleans, management said there would be a complete shutdown, with the loss of 177 jobs. This is the plant that has now been occupied by the workforce.

The European Works Council meeting on Tuesday was convened to obtain more detail on Kimberly-Clark's announcement, last November 21, of the "sale, closure or downsizing of up to 18 manufacturing facilities worldwide and a workforce reduction of approximately 5,000 employees." At the time, Kimberly-Clark said the restructuring "moves the company closer to achieving its 'stretch' financial target of doubling earnings per share from operations between 1995 and the year 2000." The November announcement mentioned plans to sell off the company's tissue mill in Winslow, Maine, USA and to downsize another in Marinette, Wisconsin. But it did not say where else the axe would fall in Kimberly-Clark's 37-country manufacturing operation.

The French workers'occupation of the site is their way of "visibly signalling to you their disagreement with a measure dictated by American financiers," writes FCE-CFDT National Secretary Jacques Caltot in a letter to the company's European Director M. Van Steenberg. "At a time of mounting unemployment in France and Europe, it is simply impossible to allow the implementation of a decision that would leave 177 wage-earners jobless. This prospect is all the more intolerable in a plant that was set up with the assistance of major financial aid packages."

Caltot calls on Van Steenberg to suspend the closure decision and to meet worker representatives as soon as possible in order to explore alternatives.

At global level, the FCE-CFDT is affiliated to the 20-million-strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers' Unions (ICEM).

"We fully support our French members' campaign," commented ICEM General Secretary Vic Thorpe. "Global corporations cannot be allowed to accept taxpayers' money and then just walk away from their job commitments."