At a time when the world is experiencing the consequences of the economic crisis, the struggle between workers and business owners is intensifying. Most often, when protecting their rights, employees of enterprises use strikes, that is, an organized termination of work with the simultaneous presentation of 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 have limited themselves only to the placement of electronic editions of newspapers on the Internet. The reason for this failure was the strike of the printers. Hersant's print media posted on Internet sites that no paper versions of the newspapers would be available on that date due to the outbreak 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 massive layoffs of employees of printing houses. For example, more than 600 people were laid off by the publishing house Hersant, more than 1000 by the company Presstails, whose field of activity is the distribution of printed publications. Employees of the factories, united in the Federation of Paper and Book Workers, have issued an appeal to the government, which is demanding a solution to the issue of jobs.
The actions of the printers drew condemnation from the National Union of the Daily Press. In a statement, the organization notes that the print media have become hostages of printing houses, which will only more destabilize the labor market in the printing industry.
Strikes by printers are not uncommon in France. In October 2011, due to a protest, the issue of the newspaper Le Monde was not published, which was directly related to the strike of workers of a printing house in one of the suburbs of Paris. At that time, the employees of the enterprise opposed the transfer of structural divisions of the printing house to other areas.
Commenting on the situation, Gerard Pitokshi, one of the trade union leaders, pointed to the fact that paper editions of newspapers have been selling worse lately. And yet the industry could survive for another decade, so capitalize on this by using the next few years to train printers for new jobs, rather than mindlessly cutting jobs.
