Tech employees are starting to take matters into their own hands, with some apparently not above kidnapping.
Our story begins in southwestern France, at a soon-to-be-closed Sony plant where employees had suffered numerous layoffs.
Frustrated with the aggressive pace of the layoffs, and the seeming arrogance among Sony execs in doling out the pink slips, Sony workers “detained” Sony France chief executive Serge Foucher overnight to convince him to negotiate better terms for plant employees once the Sony site closes down in April.
Shades of “9-to-5”, right? But Dabney Coleman and Dolly Parton were nowhere to be found as Serge Foucher and several other Sony executives were released early Friday after workers obtained guarantees that they would take part in a new round of negotiations.
According to Reuters, Sony employees Workers had forcibly locked managers inside the facility at Pontonx-sur-l'Adour late on Thursday and blocked the road to the site with tree trunks. According to union reps, snatching and holding the Sony execs was an act of last resort.
"We hope that this time our voices will be heard," union representative Patrick Hachaguer told Reuters. No word on police action against the workers, but it’s hard to believe Sony will take this lying down.
Better news from the financial markets today, with the Dow Jones Average up again for the fourth day in a row. Is it the real thing or another dead cat bounce?
Andrew B. Busch, Global FX Strategist at BMO Capital Markets, was on CNBC this morning, saying that the market has finally hit, at least, an emotional bottom that was triggered by the belief among investors that we have survived the worst of the storm.
“Has the market psychology hit a bottom? I would say emphatically, yes,” he says. “Honestly, it could've have got much worse. We should now enter a period where news is interpreted through the prism of "We didn't die!"
“The NYTimes had it right when they said that stocks rallied because, "Investors found the financial news not as bad as feared."Well, this will only get us so far on the upside. To truly put in a bottom, we need to have the financial sector stabilized and functioning. We'll need more than relief from a near death experience for this to occur.”
Hot stocks today? CNBC has some poppers in the tech sector, including AT&T, which is up 4% on new plans to bulk up its 3G network. Medtronic is another. The medical-device maker is up 5% after Wachovia pegs its implantable defibrillators as the genuine article. eBay is also up 4%, after a solid positive sales outlook and rumors that PayPal should be a big profit center for the online auction site.
For once, some good news heading into the weekend . . .