European workers rebel as G-20 looms

Holding management overnight is an extreme, though not entirely uncommon, tactic in French industrial disputes and first rose to prominence during the 1968 revolt by students and workers.

Traditionally, workers have entered into discussion with employers over job losses and other hot-button issues like pay and benefits. If discussion failed there, was always the nuclear option: a strike. With workers being laid off, strikes are not possible – thus the more extreme measures.

The protests are symbolic in nature, intended to draw attention to workers' plight, says Zander Wedderburn, a labor union expert and professor emeritus at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

"In a way they're fighting against a global recession – they're not going to shoot the guys, they're looking for a headline to get support from the public and attention from politicians.

"There is a structural problem in the economy and occupations won't change that," said Professor Wedderburn.

The 100 former workers who spent the night at the Visteon plant in Belfast are already gaining support from both ends of the local political spectrum.

Gerry Adams, president of the Irish republican political party Sinn Féin and member of parliament for West Belfast, home to many of the protesters, spoke at the site on Wednesday, saying Ford had a "moral responsibility" to the workers. Northern Ireland's enterprise minister, Arlene Foster from the pro-British Democratic Unionist party, said politicians must help the manufacturing sector.

Workers in Visteon's two plants in Britain also attempted occupations Wednesday. Fifty people are protesting inside a plant at Basildon, Essex, while others are protesting outside a plant in Enfield, London.

Jane Gunn, founder of the mediation firm Corporate Peacemakers, says that the actions are driven by a sense of desperation.

"The psychology of it is that people in conflict lack a feeling of power over their circumstances," she says. "It isn't outcome-driven, it's a way of regaining power and influence in a psychological sense.

"There are two fundamental things people are asking for in any relationship: 'Do I matter?' and 'Am I heard?' The underlying feeling is one of lack of respect."

Roger Maddison, automotive sector spokesperson for the union Unite, said that workers are not sufficiently protected by British law.

"We are bitterly disappointed with today's news," he commented Tuesday. "Within minutes, these workers' working world collapsed around them. Once again we see how cheap and easy it is to sack UK workers. One minute, they were working, but six minutes later they were jobless, pensionless, and looking at the state basic in redundancy pay as their company was placed into administration. This is no way to treat a loyal workforce."

Unite, the largest union in Britain, is the British arm of Workers Uniting, the largest private sector union in the USA and Canada.

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