France/India

French company offers workers move to India with 96 per cent pay cut

Article published on the 2009-05-10 Latest update 2009-05-10 11:01 TU

Indian textile workers at a trade fair in Delhi
(Photo: AFP)

French textile company Carreman has offered nine of its workers a choice of redeployment to India, with a 96 per cent pay cut, or the sack. Bosses at the factory in Castres, south-west France, say they made the offer in order to comply with legal requirements that they describe as "stupid".

Union officials say that there was "anger mixed with stupefaction" when Carreman bosses told nine employees that they could either quit the company or move to its factory in Bangalore.

Workers there are paid 69 euros a month for a six-day week. They also get an annual bonus of a month's pay and medical insurance. The French workers earn up to 1,800 euros a month.

The Castres employees believe that their bosses, who also offered free plane tickets and a 1,000-euro payment for moving, would have been astonished if they had accepted.

The company says that it made the offer so as to comply with French labour law on layoffs.

"French law obliges us to make a written offer of redeployment if we have other factories, even if they are in Papua or Bangladesh," managing director François Morel told the Dépêche du Midi newspaper. "I know it's stupid, but it's the law that's stupid."

As well as its Indian site, Carreman has another factory in France and one in Romania.