Louis Vuitton's French artisans on the verge of striking

Last Thursday, two French unions, the CFDT and the CGT, called on Louis Vuitton employees from five of the brand's eighteen factories, in Asnières, Saint-Donat-sur-l'Herbasse, Sarras, Condé and Issoudun to strike due to new agreements made by the brand to change working hours by reducing overtime and to get a higher wage. As Fashion Network reports, one of the slogans of the demonstrators was  «Fantastic work for pitiful salaries». The union representatives decided on this move as the management of Louis Vuitton, the main subsidiary of the LVMH group, is considering «ua new working time agreement to reduce overtime », as  Le Monde reports, for a reduction in working hours from 35 to 33 hours per week and the transition to a calculation of working hours on an annual basis, which would actually change the work shifts forcing many workers to stay in the factory even in the evening. According to the newspapers, a few hundred workers in the brand's historic factories in Asniéres and Issoudun have left their jobs.

The CFDT, which represents 50% of these workers, is open to trading while the other, more hostile unions threaten a general strike within a week. In addition, trade union officials «ask for a revaluation of salary», stressing that «the hourly rate of a Louis Vuitton employee with fifteen years of seniority» is 14 euros. Besides, the union denounces «a very different reality from the bling-bling side that people imagine» talking about «the pressuring of employees» and attributing the increasingly consistent absenteeism rate in factories to the too tight deadlines required to create the brand's leather goods collections. The unions also argue that the brand intends to use the proposed change in working hours to eliminate the regular standard day shift and operate on the basis of morning and evening shifts, the only ones offered to new employees.