French Sony Workers Hold The Boss Hostage---And Workers Fight Back Elsewhere

Members of the French CGT, a left union with a generally good history, in southwest France held a Sony chief exec hostage after a meeting to close the plant. Read about it here.

One of the interesting features of this story is that it is getting so much coverage on techie blogs while labor and left blogs have not yet picked up the story. Many of these same blogs are also picking up on events in India where workers' struggles in high tech facilities have ramped up recently. Another interesting aspect of this story is that this is the third time this year that French workers have detained execs closing plants. This protest comes after a series of national mass actions and a successful general strike and just before scheduled spring protests by the French unions.

You can follow some CGT news here.

Some Waterford Crystal workers in Ireland are occupying the Deloitte head Office in Dublin. See pictures and watch a video about that here. Indymedia in Ireland seems to not have all links relating to the occupation working, but it got some coverage in The New York Times as well. Sinn Fein is supporting the occupation. An overview of the economic crisis in Ireland can be found here.

Republic Windows and Doors workers here in the US recently got some good news that their plant will reopen after their successful occupation and mobilization. The company's Iowa plant, which did not figure prominently in the protests, may be closing.

What are the lessons here? Workers can take dramatic actions and live to tell about them and workers around the world are responding to the international economic crisis with a growing militancy. Many of these actions will draw on workers not previously engaged in struggles and they will resonate with information and high tech workers and workers forced into global mobility--mostly non-unionworkers, it must be said--internationally. We need more action.