The
Financial Times reports today that French workers at a "failed French car supplier are threatening to blow up their factor unless Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen stump up extra copmensation. Employees of the engine parts maker New Fabris have rigged up gas canisters, which they say will be detonated on July 31 if the two carmakers fail to pay $42,000 to each of the 366 workers facing unemployment."
Amazing, isn't it? The workers's union complains that they just want a "piece of the cake," like the one recieved by the financial sector. French officials say they won't negotiate while a threat is in place. And French officals fear that tensions could rise in the fall, when unemploument and company failures are expected to rise.
While unions in the States may not be threatening violence, they have "blown up" the auto industry and are threatening to "blow up" (in the financial sense) various municipal and state governments. Public sector employees enjoy pensions and benefits that few workers in the private sector get. See this week's Economist magazine and our cover story about the coming retirement crisis from November 2008, "Promises Will Be Broken."