FRANCE: WORKERS LOCKED OUT OF RENAULT PLANTS FOLLOWING STRIKES AND ALLEGED SABOTAGE.

Record ID: 342093

  • Title: FRANCE: WORKERS LOCKED OUT OF RENAULT PLANTS FOLLOWING STRIKES AND ALLEGED SABOTAGE.
  • Date: 18th April 1973
  • Summary: 1. CU Sign "Flins, Renault" 0.05 2. STV PAN & GVs -- strikers outside factory (3 shots) 0.24 3. MV Strikers seated (2 shots) 0.30 4. SV Strikers looking at leaflets 0.34 5. SV Strikers ZOOM INTO placard and SV strikers shouting and waving banners (3 shots) 1.04 6. GV PAN & MV Strikers listening to man with loud hailer (3 shots) 1.22 Initials ES. 1300 ES. 1325 Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 3rd May 1973 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: FLINS, PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Reuters ID: LVA7WNF7T9IA0RA0U96914KC1OT3
  • Story Text: The French car manufacturer, Renault, on Tuesday (17 April) locked out twenty-thousand workers from its plant at Flins near Paris. The management lock-out follows strikes and alleged sabotage in Renault factories.

    The day before, about seven-thousand Renault workers voted to continue a stoppage which began last week. There was a sympathy strike at Flins and production stopped at several Renault plants.

    As well as the lock-out at Flins, a second plant at Sandouville near Le Havre was closed, leaving forty thousand Renault workers either locked out or on strike.

    The strikes, lock-outs and other actions present the worst labour conflict in Renault since the 1968 labour-student disturbances broke out. Overall production loss at Renault plants has been estimated at more than two thousand vehicles a day.

    The latest strikes began as a workers' protest against management refusal to pay seven thousand men full wages for a recent two-week period when they were laid off. A month ago 400 lower-paid workers had struck for increased pay.

    SYNOPSIS: About twenty-thousand workers were locked out of one of the French Renault car company's key plants on Tuesday. The management move at Flins, near Paris, was the latest step in an industrial dispute which is heading the state-owned company towards complete disruption. Apart from the strikes at Flins, the management accused workers of using violence to disrupt production.

    The shutdown at Flins coincides with a major strike at Renault's main Paris plant. Other Renault factories were also hit by industrial trouble.

    The current unrest started as a workers' protest against management refusal to pay full wages to seven thousand workers who were laid off during a recent two-weak Period. Lower paid workers at Renault plants are seeing higher pay. About a month ago, only four hundred Paris workers struck in support of upgrading. With the lock-outs, more than one third of Renault's employees are not working.

    About forty thousand of one hundred thousand workers are either striking or are locked out of their factories. Labour unrest threatens to cripple Renault's production. Already the loss is estimated at more than two thousand vehicles a day.
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