HP France employees strike over job cuts
Protesting planned job cuts, half of HP's workforce in France answers a call to strike. About 2,000 people in all stay off the job.
On Friday, more than half of employees answered a call to strike that was put out by a group of trade unions, including the Conf?d?ration Fran?aise des Travailleurs Chr?tiens (CFTC) and Conf?d?ration G?n?rale du Travail (CGT), according to official figures.
A spokesman for the CGT told silicon.com's sister site, ZDNet France, that the strikers included 90 percent of the employees--350 to 400 people--at HP's site at Ulis in the Essonne region. At Grenoble, 1,200 went on strike, 200 at L'isle d'Abeau in Is?re, another 200 at Sophia-Antipolis in Alpes-Maritimes and 300 at the company's French headquarters, in Issy-les-Moulineaux.
On the morning of the strike, Patrick Starck, the head of HP France, met with G?rard Larcher, minister for employment. No information has yet become available on how the discussions went.
HP France plans to lay off 1,240 employees as part of a restructuring plan that will affect 10 percent of its workforce globally.
Jo Best of Silicon.com reported from London.