French Strikers Hang On to Threads of a Worldview

Kelsey Walker
April 17, 2009
1:54 PM

For the last month, workers from the Caterpillar company in France have been on strike, blocking intercity trains and stopping and interrogating the local police prefect. The workers have been fighting for their own jobs and the jobs of their children but also, in a way these workers are also fighting for a traditional kind of French management-worker relationship that is quickly fraying in this global economic crisis. They feel like management within corporations now are young and do not know how to lead. Many workers have been to long meeting with the management. Because Caterpillar is an American owned company many of the layoffs are affected by the amount of production that the U. S. needs. As of right now France has a unemployment percent at 8.3 and it is growing due to the global economical crisis. Workers say that they are going to fight until they have earned the old French labor ways back and have secured their job within this global economy.
Globalization is affecting a lot more countries and people now that we are going through a global economy. Many things that occur in America will affect the production and labor force within France and other countries and vesa versa. What workers or government can do at this point is hard to decide because we are talking on a global scale now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/world/europe/17strike.html?_r=1&ref=world