At government level, in various European countries negotiations are continuing to save the Swiss-based Petroplus refinery group and its facilities. Petroplus lenders have frozen all of the group's credit lines, but the company said negotiations continued to try to restore the funds it needs to keep its five European refineries running. In France, workers and union officials were met France's energy minister in an effort to save the Petit Couronne refinery. Clearly, the Sarkozy government is trying to avoid a number of high-profile industrial shutdowns and mass layoffs less than four months from a presidential election, though no specific outcomes have been mentioned. In Belgium, similar efforts have been underway concerning the Antwerp Petroplus refinery.
English: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/09/france-petroplus-idU ...
This article was published in the Collective Bargaining Newsletter. It aims to facilitate information exchange between trade unions and to support the work of ETUC's collective bargaining committee. For more information, please contact the editor Maarten van Klaveren, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) M.vanKlaveren@uva.nl or the communications officer of the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net. © ETUI aisbl, Brussels 2012.