Workers at French carmaker Renault have fully taken up a voluntary departure plan, with more than 3,900 out of a possible 4,000 staff signing up to leave, the company's lawyer said Friday.
Union leaders from the CGT were petitioning a French court to block the departure plan, which has sparked a wave of strikes and protests, accusing the carmaker of dressing up economic layoffs as voluntary redundancies.
“We have recorded 3,928 requests, with the plan still set to run until April 2009,” Renault lawyer Yasmine Tarasewicz told the court near Paris, which is to hand down its ruling on December 12.
The French automaker in September outlined plans for the voluntary departure of 4,000 employees in France by April next year, with an additional 2,000 job cuts expected elsewhere in Europe.
Renault, which currently employs 41,000 people in France, is struggling to overcome the effects of a sluggish domestic and European market which has led it to shut down most of its French plants for one to two weeks.
The job cuts could lead to savings of 350 million euros (497 million dollars) in 2009 and 500 million in 2010, according to the carmaker
