Sure, Kidnap the Man.(World Affairs; FRANCE)(kidnapping executives)

Byline: Tracy McNicoll; With Stryker McGuire in London

In a global downturn, every nation has deep gripes. But only the French have a wave of bossnappings.

There may be plenty of good reasons to be angry at your boss these days. But few express that frustration quite like the French. Over the past several weeks factory workers facing pay cuts and layoffs at some of the world's biggest companies have barricaded executives and human-resources directors in their offices and held them captive for as many as 36 hours at a time. At the Sony France factory in southwest France, angry employees reportedly blocked the plant door with branches and tree trunks and held the bosses overnight until adjourning to a police station for further negotiation. In another so-called bossnapping, four dozen employees of a Caterpillar plant in Grenoble held four executives for 24 hours, allegedly confiscated their cell phones and made threatening calls to their families.

The tactics are working. The penalty for holding your boss hostage is five years in jail, but authorities have yet to prosecute a case. Most companies haven't even pressed charges against the perpetrators. In fact, the companies targeted have yielded new concessions like larger severance packages. Popular sentiment is behind the bossnappers, too. In one poll, 55 percent of those surveyed said "social action that is radical, even violent like factory or road blockades, even sequestering executives or bosses," is "justified." Almost two thirds said these methods shouldn't be punished because "they are often the only means employees have of being heard."

This uniquely French phenomenon is largely the result of the unusual structure of the country's labor unions. Decades ago the French government granted a handful of unions lucrative powers, such as the authority to administer pension programs, as well as the right to negotiate on behalf of French workers in both the public and private sectors. Ever since, the unions have remained financially stable without large numbers of dues payers, and with the benefits of membership accruing even to nonmembers, workers have had little incentive to join. So, contrary to popular belief, France is now the least unionized country in the developed world, with just 8 percent of workers paying dues, compared with 11.6 percent in the U.S. and 28 percent in the ...