Sony Chief Held Hostage By Own Staff

Serge Foucher is chief executive of Sony in France. He visited one of the firm's factories in the south west of the country yesterday as a 'courtesy' to 300 sacked workers.

They didn't return the courtesy. Instead, says The Guardian, "Angry at their severance packages, the workers had taken Serge Foucher captive".

Patrick Hachaguer of the CGT union, commenting on the fact that Foucher had been locked in a meeting room overnight said, "He won't listen to us, we didn't find any other solution."

The chief exec was put into a mini-bus this morning at 10:00 to be taken to the town of Dax, where the workers will seek to have negotiations over severance pay carried out in public view. Says Msr Foucher, "I'm happy to be free and to see the light of day again."

^{Sources:
Reuters
The Guardian}