In conditions when the world is experiencing the effects of the economic crisis, the struggle between workers and business owners is escalating. Most often, when defending their rights, employees of enterprises use strikes, that is, organized termination of work while presenting their demands to management. In early July 2012, one of these protests took place in France.
On July 5, 2012, the vast majority of paper newspapers in France did not go out of print. Many publications limited themselves only to placing electronic issues of newspapers on the Internet. The reason for this failure was the strike of printing workers. The print media produced by the Hersant group posted on the Internet sites information that on that day paper versions of newspapers would not appear on sale due to the start of a nationwide strike.
On the website of the World Publishing Association, it was reported that the reason for the start of the protest was the mass layoffs of printing workers. For example, more than 600 people were reduced by Hersant, more than 1, 000 by Presstails, whose main area of activity is print distribution. Employees of the enterprises, united in the Federation of workers in the paper and book industry, made an appeal to the government, in which they demanded to resolve the issue of jobs.
The actions of the printing workers were condemned by the National Daily Press Union. The statement of this organization notes that the print media have become hostages of printing houses, which only more destabilizes the labor market in the printing industry.
Cases of strikes by printing workers are not uncommon in France. In October 2011, because of the protest, the newspaper Le Monde did not see the light of the day, which was directly related to the strike of workers at a printing house in one of the suburbs of Paris. At that time, the company's employees opposed the transfer of structural units of the printing house to other areas.
Commenting on the situation, Gerard Pitokshi, one of the union leaders, pointed out the fact that paper newspapers have been selling worse recently. And yet, the industry can last another decade, so you should benefit from this situation by using the next few years to train printing workers for new professions, and not cut mindlessly jobs.
