While relations between France and the U.S. have warmed up since Nicolas Sarkozy was elected President of France in 2007 — Sarkozy even visited George W. Bush at his summer house in Kennebunkport, mon dieu! — things don’t seem to be improving for Alcatel-Lucent. A recent AP Financial Wire reported that “Not Much has gone right in the two years since France’s Alcatel joined with its American counterpart Lucent to form a powerhouse in the telecommunications equipment business.” An ongoing corruption scandel in Costa Rica, massive job cuts resulting in strained union relations, and the fact that the company has yet to post a profit since the merger among other issues, have stakeholders crying “quel bordel!”
Chief Executive Patricia Russo and Chairman Serge Tchuruk resigned as a result of the $11.4 billion merger’s failure to live up to expectations. According to the July 2008 AP Financial Wire report, the company’s stock price has fallen by over 60 percent since the merger, the company has yet to post a profit, and already it has tried massive job cuts.
In September 2008 Le Figaro reported that a total of 17 trade unions in eight countries have signed a petition calling for Serge Tchuruk and Patricia Russo, the respective former chairman and CEO of Alcatel-Lucent to waive their redundancy pay-offs. Mr Tchuruk received a pay-off of 5.6m euros in 2006, a sum he claimed was written into his contract. Unions are determined to keep Tchuruk and Russo from gliding to earth in their “Golden Parachutes.”
And according to an August 2008 Business News Americas report Alcatel-Lucent has faced many problems in Costa Rica due to bribes made by company executives to high ranking government officials. In June 2007 The U.S. Department of Justice issued a news release announcing that a former Alcatel executive plead guilty to participating in the payment of more than $2.5 million in bribes to senior Costa Rican government officials in order to obtain a mobile telephone contract from Costa Rica’s state-owned telecommunications authority, which was in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The problems Alcatel-Lucent faces in Costa Rica are ongoing. In September 2008 the former executive of Alcatel, Christian Sapsizian, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for bribery.
All of this is on top of the company’s bad history with The Communications Workers of America (CWA). A February 15, 2007 CWA press release explains: “Because Alcatel, which recently purchased Lucent, is French-owned, Lucent created a shell company, Secure Lucent, to meet U.S. government demands that contract work be performed by a U.S. firm. Lucent management was transferred to Secure Lucent, but the company has refused to transfer CWA-represented technicians. Instead, these workers are being stripped of their security clearances and their work handed over to contractors.” According to the press release, CWA President Larry Cohen has said: “Alcatel Lucent management admitted that it could have transferred our members, but it wanted to get rid of collective bargaining and wanted a cheaper deal…Alcatel Lucent management must learn—and quickly—that there will be considerable losses to shareholder value when management acts as if our jobs, our rights and our union can be stripped away.” The company is currently the focus of the CWA’s “No Stripping” campaign, which seeks to stop the stripping of union jobs globally.
Indeed, we can’t help but concur that not much has gone right for Alcatel-Lucent. Is it possible that the company could someday see “La Vie en Rose”? Stay tuned.
These crooks and crooked politicians are ruining our country with their greed, What can we as citizens do to put a stop to this. Our laws should protect us and prosecute these people to the full extent of the law and take their moneyand homes and assets to give them back to the people they stole from. Do we start writing to our congressman (who are of no real help) or what?