De Carbon locks out workers

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In February 2000, the management of the De Carbon shock absorber manufacturer in France barred its employees from entering its plant for five days on the grounds that its proposed redundancy plan, cutting the workforce by more than half, had created a "climate of violence" at the site. Following a court ruling, the plant was subsequently reopened, but management refused to compensate workers for lost earnings during the lock-out.

Employees of De Carbon, a shock absorber manufacturing company based in Andé in the Eure département, were locked out of the plant for five days, from 12 to 16 February 2000, by company management. The company put its decision down to the "climate of violence" which reportedly prevailed at the plant following the announcement of a redundancy plan on 31 January, cutting the current 530 workforce by 282. De Carbon had already implemented a redundancy plan in 1999, when the scale of job losses had been limited by implementing the provisions of the 35-hour week legislation (FR0001137F).

De Carbon, which was originally a family business, was bought out in 1989 by the world's largest automobile parts manufacturer, the US-owned Delphi group. However, Delphi now sees De Carbon as "uncompetitive". General Motors and later Renault stopped buying parts from De Carbon in 1999, which significantly reduced the company's operations. De Carbon employees are accusing Delphi of having failed to both invest in new production equipment and seek out new market opportunities.

Workers received details of the redundancy plan on the basis of documents written in English. In the opinion of De Carbon employees, this is symptomatic of the multinational's contempt for them. De Carbon workers stepped up their action, even going as far as to stage a two-day sit-in at Delphi headquarters. Following this, the company sent a letter to De Carbon employees informing them of its decision to suspend operations and to close the plant temporarily, on the grounds that it was "completely impossible to ensure the smooth running of the plant in terms of production and staff safety".

The De Carbon works council, together with the CGT trade union delegate, referred the issue under the fast-track ruling system to the local court in Evreux. The court ruled that workers should be allowed back to work and ordered De Carbon to pay a FRF 200,000 fine for every day it delayed opening the plant. However, the court referred the issue of pay during the lock-out to normal legal procedures. In the light of the court's ruling, De Carbon reopened the plant but refused to compensate workers for lost earnings due to the lock out.