Teamsters Join French Workers in Global Solidarity Rally

Members Protest Lisle Company Eliminating 250 Workers
in France

Chicago Teamsters joined their union brothers and sisters last week to protest the closing of an electronics manufacturing plant in France.

Several members of the Teamsters’ sister labor federation in France, the CGT, joined local union members on Friday outside the Lisle headquarters of Molex, an electronics company that has announced plans to shutter its French factory. The protest coincided with a Molex shareholders’ meeting and placed significant pressure on the company to maintain the plant or provide severance packages to its 250 employees.

“The French union folks have been protesting a lot in France. When they found out this shareholders’ meeting was taking place, they wanted to come and they reached out to us,” said Tim Beaty, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Director of Global Strategies. “We arranged for them to get inside the meeting and set up a protest in support of them.”

Those union members with proxies to the meeting were ultimately denied entrance, Beaty said. Additionally, two of the French visitors were temporarily detained at O’Hare Airport and questioned.

In addition to the Teamsters, members of the Service Employees International Union, Workers United, Jobs With Justice and the AFL-CIO attended the global solidarity rally.

Molex, which produces electronics equipment for cars, appliances and computers, plans to move the French plant’s production to China and Vietnam.

Teamsters Joint Council 25 represents more than 100,000 hardworking men and women throughout Illinois.

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