Trade union representatives have reacted angrily to cuts unveiled by the US company General Electric, calling them an ‘earthquake’ in the country’s workplace. General Electric has announced plans to shed 1,300 jobs in Switzerland as part of an overall plan to cut 6,500 positions across Europe after acquiring the energy business of French company Alstom. The trade union fears that the rapid dismantling of the Alstom operations — the cuts amount to almost a quarter of its workforce — so quickly after GE's takeover is a symptom of the arrival of ‘the American style of management’.
English: http://www.thelocal.ch/20160113/ge-announces-plans-to-slash-1300-swiss-jobs
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.