Labor Unrest in France

Do we really want more unions?  (HT Drudge) From TIMESONLINE, "EDF strikers cut power to French homes,"

At an electricity substation on a bleak industrial estate north of Paris a masked union militant is preparing to deprive a neighbourhood of power.

His colleague is outside, dragging nervously on a roll-up cigarette while keeping a lookout for police or security guards. “Get a move on,” he says. “And then let’s get out of here.”

A switch is pulled down, the door of the sabotaged transformer is locked and the two activists — employees of EDF, the French state electricity supplier — drive off.

In their wake hundreds of houses and a handful of businesses in Montigny-lès-Cormeilles are left without electricity for much of the morning.

It was the second time in a week that blackouts had hit the Paris region as striking gas and electricity workers adopted radical tactics to support their call for a 10 per cent pay rise and an end to outsourcing of jobs.

They are denounced as industrial saboteurs by the Government and face disciplinary action and prosecution, but say they are determined to press ahead with what they portray as a struggle against free-market forces.