France Telecom says its virtually entirely automated telephone service was undisturbed by the strike protesting plans to streamline the operator and prepare it for partial privatization. Only a few thousand employees showed up for a Paris protest march, and France Telecom said that just 45% failed to show up for work, compared to the 75% that took the day off during a similar strike three years ago and 65% last October. This demonstrates that the employees do not understand the unions’ attitude, a company spokesman told Reuter. Union officials insisted that more than half of workers observed the strike, and claimed they predicted ahead of time that 55% to 60% of the workforce would participate. The lack of any perceived impact from strikes has a tendency to alert management to the idea that it could likely get by with substantially fewer employees on a permanent basis. The planned privatization is anyway little more than a token gesture: privatization will not jeopardise the privileged civil servant status of those staff that already enjoy it, and the phone company will remain majority state-owned.
