(Updates with union urging Obama's intervention)
GRENOBLE, France (AFP)--French workers Wednesday released four
managers held hostage for 24 hours at a Caterpillar Inc. (CAT)
bulldozer plant, after the U.S. firm offered to reopen talks on
layoffs under mediation by the state.
Employees at the Caterpillar factory in the southeastern city of
Grenoble barricaded their bosses inside an office on Tuesday after
talks between management and 733 workers facing redundancy broke
down.
Factory director Nicolas Polutnik was set free along with the
head of personnel and two other managers. A fifth executive, the
human resources director who suffers from heart problems, had been
allowed to leave Tuesday.
Hecklers shouted out "Resign!" while some 400 workers booed and
whistled as the executives were driven from the site, headed for
the regional labor office where the talks with unions are to take
place.
Their release came after President Nicolas Sarkozy moved to
defuse the situation by offering in a radio interview to meet union
leaders from the plant to hear their demands.
"I will save the site," Sarkozy told Europe 1 radio. "I will
meet the union leaders since, if I understand right, they called
for my help and I understand this. I won't let them down."
A CGT union representative called on Sarkozy to ask U.S.
President Barack Obama, when he meets him in London at Thursday's
G20 summit, to intervene with the U.S. boss of Caterpillar to
improve lay-off terms.
"Mr. Sarkozy can perhaps influence Obama, so that he can then
influence Jim Owens," said Pierre Piccarreta.
Wide-ranging negotiations resumed Wednesday on a possible cut in
the number of redundancies, compensation for laid-off staff and the
long-term future of the Grenoble operations.
Caterpillar workers were demanding a minimum of EUR30,000 in
severance pay, much more than the EUR10,000 Caterpillar was
offering as minimum compensation.
The CGT's Piccarreta said the talks would involve
representatives from Caterpillar's European and U.S. headquarters
and French state officials.
He said Caterpillar had already put an offer of compensation on
the table for staff forced into part-time work, and would pay
workers for the three days spent on strike - which he called a
"historic" gesture.
Polutnik told reporters at the plant that Caterpillar had agreed
to the unions' demand for payment for time on strike "as a gesture
of appeasement."
"There is a condition, which is for the site to be evacuated,
for us to be free to come and go as we please, and for the strike
order to be lifted to allow negotiations to go ahead," he said.
He didn't confirm the offer of special compensation for
part-timers.