Iran sanctions force historic plant closure for Peugeot
Press TV – October 25, 2013
With European auto sales near a 20-year low, it’s unthinkable that an automaker would willingly cut ties with its largest foreign client. But in February 2012 Peugeot did just that by severing ties with Iran. The move was forced by its new partner, General Motors, which had just been bailed out by the US government.
The decision has cost an estimated €4 billion in lost sales and helped force 8,000 job cuts. In France’s first such industrial closure in two decades, the last car has just rolled off the line at a plant located in a heavily-Muslim suburb of Paris.
Via a partnership with automaker Iran Khodro, in 2011 Iran accounted for 13% of Peugeot’s annual sales. The cars were assembled in Iran, giving domestic autoworkers valuable experience and helping Iran to become one of the world’s top 20 auto-producing countries.
The French press has largely remained silent on the key role Iran sanctions have played in damaging Peugeot, despite pleas from union leaders.
Ironically, giving up the Iranian market seems to have been in vain, as multiple sources have reported that GM has significantly scaled back its alliance with Peugeot. If the sanctions on Iran were designed to inflict the maximum amount of pain on Peugeot, they may have achieved their goal.
Related article
Detroit Bankruptcy Takes Aim at Pensions
By Jane Slaughter | Labor Notes | July 19, 2013
Detroit hit the Trifecta last week—the third in a series of body blows that politicians have landed on the city’s working people.
The Michigan legislature passed “right-to-work” in December and gave the governor the right to impose “emergency managers” on cities two days later. When Detroit’s emergency manager Kevyn Orr announced Chapter 9 bankruptcy Thursday, he was following a predicted trajectory that will lead to further impoverishment and privatization.
The bankruptcy will enable an appointed judge to impose further cuts to city expenses and to void union contracts. A prime target for cost-cutting is the pensions owed to 21,000 city retirees and 9,000 active workers. The city estimates its pensions are underfunded by $3.5 billion, and wants to reduce payments to both workers and the bondholders who have lent the city money over the years: equality of sacrifice.
Michael Mulholland, vice president of the city’s largest AFSCME local, said city workers are “in a state of somewhere between perplexion and total anger. Everything they’ve been promised, both contractually and kind of a social contract, is being pulled out from under them. It’s morally indefensible.”
Mulholland retired in February, after 29 and a half years in the Water Department. “I could have worked someplace else and made more money,” he said, “but I was told if I worked here I’d have a steady job and in my old age not be in poverty.”
The bankruptcy of Detroit, which now has fewer than 700,000 residents, is the largest city bankruptcy in U.S. history.
Orr sprung the hurry-up filing yesterday because union pension fund attorneys were scheduled to be in court on Monday, arguing for an injunction against bankruptcy.
The state constitution appears to protect public employee pensions: “The accrued financial benefits of each pension plan and retirement system of the state and its political subdivisions shall be a contractual obligation thereof and shall not be diminished or impaired thereby.”
But proponents of making city workers bite the bullet note that bankruptcy judges have wide latitude to break contracts.
Tag-Teaming with the Governor and the Banks
Pundits said other states and cities would look to Detroit as a template for how to manage ailing city budgets. A recent law in Rhode Island specifies that in a city bankruptcy, bondholders must be paid first, before pensioners.
Asked if the Michigan legislature could pass a similar law, Mulholland laughed. “If they proposed a law that Detroiters should all be shot,” he said, “some of them would get up at midnight to sign that one.” Governor Rick Snyder has guided the process of putting Detroit through a “consent decree,” Orr’s rule, and now the bankruptcy.
The Republican-dominated legislature has long been hostile to majority-black Detroit. In November 2012, the state’s voters passed a referendum that threw out a previous “emergency manager” law, which had been used almost exclusively to take over majority-black cities and school districts. A few weeks later the legislature simply passed the law again.
Although the law requires negotiations with affected parties before a city files for bankruptcy, Mulholland, who was in the talks, said, “It wasn’t negotiations, it was PowerPoint presentations about how bad the situation is.
“Orr wouldn’t answer AFSCME’s requests for negotiations, so they went and taped a letter to the door of his office.”
As an AFSCME member who had reached the top of the pay scale, Mulholland’s pension is $1,600 a month before health care contributions are taken out. He said exactly how much Orr intends to take from retirees has always been left vague, though union leaders were told health care would be slashed.
Two years ago, he said, city officials encouraged workers to retire right away. Now active workers are told to “relax, we’re going after the retirees.”
Local 207 is planning a demonstration in downtown Detroit July 25.
Orr touts the bankruptcy as a way to improve city services—which often, in the world he comes from, is code for privatization. Water, garbage pickup, an island park called Belle Isle, and the Detroit Institute of the Arts have all been mentioned as potential salable items. “The only thing they’re going to ‘improve’ is somebody’s bottom line,” Mulholland predicted.
General Motors, which is headquartered downtown, said it wouldn’t be affected by the bankruptcy. Apparently, with Snyder—who ran on his record as a businessman—in charge, business is going to be just fine.
Top Executives at Bailed-Out Companies Keep Getting the Big Bucks, with a Wink from Treasury Dept.
By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | January 30, 2013
Executives of corporations bailed out by the U.S. government received more than $6 million in raises last year, despite guidelines by the Department of the Treasury that are supposed to limit such salaries.
The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Assets Relief Program (SIGTAR) accused Treasury officials of ignoring the guidelines and approving raises sought by the companies.
An extra $6.2 million was awarded to just 18 employees at General Motors (GM), Ally Financial and American International Group (AIG), which received a total of more than $250 billion in bailout funds. This included a $1 million raise for the chief executive of an AIG division, Chartis, and $200,000 for an employee of Ally’s Residential Capital—which filed for bankruptcy only weeks later.
In 2012, the Office of the Special Master for TARP Executive Compensation approved pay packages of $3 million or more for 54% of the 69 top executives of AIG, GM and Ally.
Christy Romero, special inspector general for TARP, criticized the Treasury Department for not holding the line on executive compensation. “Treasury cannot look out for taxpayers’ interests if it continues to rely to a great extent on the pay proposed by companies that have historically pushed back on pay limits,” Romero said in her report (pdf).
She also accused Treasury of not making “meaningful reform to its processes.”
“Lacking criteria and an effective decision-making process, Treasury risks continuing to award executives of bailed-out companies excessive cash compensation without good cause,” she added.
Patricia Geoghegan, Treasury’s acting special master for compensation, rejected Romero’s conclusions, saying the audit was filled with inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of data provided to the inspector general.
Related article
Unemployed autoworkers real losers in Peugeot-Iran row: Analyst
Press TV – July 27, 2012
France’s largest car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen made a “disastrous” choice to sever ties with Iran, given Europe’s economic crisis and failing car markets, an expert says.
In February, the automaker decided to end relations with the Islamic Republic, losing the half-million vehicle sales Iran would have provided in 2012.
“Such a move, amid the European sovereign debt crisis and plummeting auto sales across the continent, seems like it could only be a disastrous business decision. And it is,” Ramin Mazaheri wrote in an article published on Press TV website.
Unable to replace the lucrative market, Peugeot was later forced to jettison 8,000 jobs to compensate for billions of euros it lost as a result, he noted.
Mazaheri dismissed the “strengthening of sanctions” against Iran and banking difficulties as the reasons behind the company’s decision.
“In exchange for selling seven percent of the company’s shares to General Motors, owned by the American government, the US insisted that Peugeot should stop selling cars to Iran,” he explained.
The analyst further referred to Iran’s policy of “economic protectionism,” which has helped the country to produce more cars than Italy or the UK and become the world’s 12th largest auto manufacturer.
Peugeot’s pullout will not affect the Iranian car industry as Iran will now continue to partner with other auto companies and to “improve the quality of Iranian vehicles by importing car kits to be assembled in Iranian factories,” according to Mazaheri.
“The 8,000 now-unemployed auto workers, as well as those who worked at the thousands of secondary jobs associated with the Peugeot plants” are the real victims of the company’s decision, he concluded.
Related articles
- Sanctions on Iran force French auto job losses (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Iran Khodro says coping with Peugeot exit (alethonews.wordpress.com)
- Peugeot First-Half Profit Plunges on Europe Sales Decline – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- Hollande’s Pledge to Block Firings Defied by Peugeot’s Reality – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
Sanctions on Iran force French auto job losses
Iran market cannot easily be replaced for Peugeot: French union member
Press TV – July 18, 2012
A French auto workers’ union member says the country’s largest automaker Peugeot cannot find a replacement for the Iranian market after the company was forced to slash 8,000 jobs over Iran sanctions, Press TV reports.
“We have no sales not for economic reasons but for political reasons. The Iranian market is one that cannot easily be replaced for Peugeot. It’s an unacceptable decision for us,” Jean-Pierre Mercier from a closed Peugeot plant told Press TV.
Peugeot’s announcement on Thursday that PSA Peugeot Citroen would axe 8,000 jobs and shut the first car factory in 20 years has caused a political firestorm.
“If the state can prevent Peugeot from selling cars to Iran, why cannot they prevent these firings? Unfortunately, the unions insufficiently mobilized to tip the scale and stopped the embargo,” Mercier said.
Iran is Peugeot’s largest foreign customer, with half a million in auto sales translating into some several billion Euros each year. However, citing new banking sanctions, Peugeot ended cooperation in February.
Peugeot’s auto sales this year are down nearly a quarter of a million units, almost exactly the amount that Iran would have normally purchased.
According to reports, giving up the Iranian market might have been the price of Peugeot’s recent alliance with Detroit’s General Motors, owned by the US government, which has imposed sanctions on Iran for decades.
This is while Renault, another major French automaker, saw their Iranian sales double last year to 100,000 vehicles and they expect this number to rise.
Related articles
- Peugeot Has 51% Chance of Debt Default, Credit Swaps Show – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
- Peugeot staff rally against 8,000 job cuts (morningstaronline.co.uk)
Corporate Crime of the Century Portrayed as Conspiracy Theory
NPR Ombudsman Says No Response Allowed to Mass Transit Mess Up
By RUSSELL MOKHIBER | May 3, 2011
The NPR Ombudsman says that no response will be allowed to a story about mass transit in Los Angeles.
On April 21, 2011, NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story about how – after a fifty year absence – light rail is coming back to Los Angeles.
NPR reporter Mandalit Del Barco reported that eighty years ago, electric mass transit dominated the city.
“By the roaring 1920’s, more than 1,000 miles of electric trolley lines and train rails ran through the ever-expanding Los Angeles,” Del Barco reported.
But then in the middle of the century, the electric trolley cars disappeared.
Why?
“LA replaced the last of its streetcars with a web of freeways and bus lines,” Del Barco reported. “That led to conspiracy theories that the streetcars were dismantled by private companies who stood to profit – General Motors, Standard Oil and tire companies. That villainous plot figured into the 1988 movie ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit.'”
In fact, it was more than just conspiracy theories.
It was an actual federal crime that led to the destruction of the nation’s electric mass transit.
The companies involved were indicted, convicted, and fined for destroying the nation’s electric mass transit systems.
Del Barco says she was familiar with the criminal history of the case, but didn’t report it.
We asked the NPR Ombudsman’s office to investigate and issue a clarification – at least tell NPR’s listeners that it wasn’t just a conspiracy theory – that it was an indicted and convicted federal crime.
The Ombudsman office said they would look into it.
Then, late last week, we got an e-mail from the NPR Ombudsman’s office.
“Our office talked to the reporter and editor of the piece,” wrote Lori Grisham of the NPR Ombudsman’s office. “They understand your concerns, but do not believe a correction is warranted. Time is one of the main constraints when it comes to producing a radio story and they were trying to condense a great deal of history into a small amount of time.”
Grisham passed along this from Jason DeRose, NPR’s Western Bureau Chief:
“The piece makes clear there had been better public transit in LA and that it was dismantled. We chose not to describe that demise in detail. There were many, many unproven allegations of conspiracy and two official fines. We chose to characterize the numerous unproven allegations as conspiracy theories to lead into the Roger Rabbit tape.”
Grisham ends her e-mail: “I apologize that NPR will not run a correction. Thank you again for taking time to contact us.”
And thank you Lori Grisham for looking into this.
But that’s just bad form – and one reason why America is angry with NPR.
We sent you the documented proven history of the criminal activity.
And still, Jason DeRose says that there were “many, many unproven allegations of conspiracy and two official fines.”
What gives?
This was proven and convicted criminal conduct.
There was nothing unproven about it.
In fact, the destruction of the nation’s electric mass transit system was perhaps one of the most egregious – and underreported – corporate crimes of the century.
Brad Snell is also not happy with the NPR Ombudsman’s decision.
Snell is in the final stages of writing a history of General Motors.
It will be published in 2013 by Knopf.
“Under our celebrated system of laws, the US Justice Department’s allegation of conspiracy by defendants General Motors, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire to monopolize the sale of buses, fuel, and tires by eliminating electric transit was transformed from theory to fact upon their conviction by a Chicago jury in US District Court on March 19, 1949,” Snell told Corporate Crime Reporter. “That judgment was affirmed on appeal (186 F.2 562 (7th Cir. 1951)) and a further appeal by defendants to the US Supreme Court was denied (cert den. 341 US 916), leaving the judgment and convictions in National City Lines as final matters of settled fact and law.”
“In 1990, the Honorable George E. MacKinnon, Senior Judge of the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC, had occasion to review the entire trial record in the National City Lines case,” Snell said.
His conclusion appeared in the Washington Legal Times on May 7, 1990.
“That Chicago trial resulted in criminal conspiracy convictions of the General Motors Corp., Standard Oil of California, and the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. for their concerted effort to replace electric streetcars with buses in numerous large and small cities,” Judge MacKinnon wrote.
“It is not a theory,” Snell said. “These are not ‘unproven allegations of conspiracy.’ It has been settled judicial fact for more than half a century. Beyond a reasonable doubt, as affirmed by the federal courts, and after denial of further review by the Supreme Court of the United States, it is an established and incontrovertible fact that General Motors, Standard Oil of California, and Firestone Tire conspired to replace electric transit in cities throughout America in order to effect a monopoly in the sale of buses and related products.”
“To suggest otherwise is to debase and mock our revered and time-honored system of American jurisprudence,” Snell said.
It is unconscionable that the NPR Ombudsman will not even consider running a response.
Russell Mokhiber edits the Corporate Crime Reporter.
Featured Video
AUTISM IN THE CROSSHAIRS OF THE TRANS MOVEMENT
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The Curious Case of the Missing Professor Mifsud
By Johanna Ross | August 13, 2019
In The Times newspaper on July 30th, appeared a short and succinct article, easily missed were it not for its intriguing headline: ‘Missing academic Joseph Mifsud at heart of Mueller investigation’. The academic in question, one may or may not have heard of, depending on the extent to which one is reliant on mainstream media for keeping abreast of the news. But anyone attempting to keep up with the complex and murky world of the Mueller investigation, may be familiar with the name of this mysterious and elusive figure.
For it is none other than Professor Mifsud, affiliated with both the Universities of Stirling and East Anglia in the UK, that was identified by the FBI as being the source of the information that Russia had ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. And intriguingly, the same Professor Mifsud who disappeared in October 2017 and has been missing ever since.
It was in April 2016 that Mifsud, who was qualified in education but somehow managed to find his way into the world of international diplomacy (becoming director of the London Academy of Diplomacy in 2012), reportedly met George Papadopoulos, foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, where he is said to have told him that the Russian government had ‘dirt on Hillary Clinton’. This information was then allegedly passed by Papadopoulos to the Australian High Commissioner in London, before being repeated to US authorities; that effectively Papdopoulos had known about the DNC hack prior to it being carried out. In short, Mifsud was the key to the whole ‘Russiagate’ scandal. … continue
Blog Roll
Recent Comments
papasha408 on Zelensky will not attend the N… michael on Zelensky will not attend the N… tonyopmoc on “Cool the Mark Out”: How the m… Bill Francis on The not-so-heroic lockdown… Best Johnd on The Media Lied Repeatedly Abou… Balthasar Gerards on “Cool the Mark Out”: How the m… charles allan on Turn Off, Don’t Automate, the… roberthstiver on The Union State Expects That T… papasha408 on Insisting on “demilitarized zo… Vlad the Skewerer on Weapon US gave Ukraine spotted… aletho on As Europe founders, is common… charles allan on CEO Of Top Carbon Credit Certi…
Aletho News- Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman to form joint naval force under China auspices: Report
- Federal Government Funds $4.7 Million Grant — Led by Merck Consultant — to Increase HPV Vaccine Uptake…
- YouTube reverses ban on questioning 2020 US election
- Enthusiasm for the vaxx falls ever lower & millions of unwanted doses expire
- World-Renowned Physician Receives Public Acknowledgement from Accuser Admitting Allegations of Academic Fraud Were Incorrect
- WHO Initiative Would ‘Promote Desired Behaviors’ by Surveilling Social Media
- The Ursula von der Leyen Affair
- CIA Vets: FBI Withholds Damning Evidence on Bidens Prior to Presidential Election, Again
- CIA hacked iPhones of diplomats in Russia – FSB
- US Advocacy Group Releases Emails Challenging Biden’s Statements on Son’s Connections
- If Americans Knew
- New 3rd political party “No Labels” seeks middle ground – except on Israel
- Is the United States Moving Its Capital to Jerusalem?
- NYT downplays Palestinian civilian deaths, political motivation for Gaza attack
- What is behind the latest Israel-Gaza violence?
- What’s standing in the way of an Israel-Gaza ceasefire? Israel wants to keep breaking int’l law
- Israeli Missiles Kill Eight Palestinians, Including A Child, In Gaza
- Israel closes Gaza crossings; possible serious deterioration of humanitarian conditions
- Israel has killed 20 journalists with impunity since 2000
- Israel attacks Gaza, killing 15 Palestinians, including women and children
- Khader Adnan’s death & Israel’s decades of despotic military orders
- Brownstone Institute
- What and Why is ‘Woke?’
- New CDC Director Is Another Lockdowner
- An Ideology and Agenda of Estrangement
- The Fraying of the Liberal International Order
- A Myth-Making Toolkit from the Volcano’s Shadow
- The Deplatforming of the “Disinformation Dozen”: More Coverage From Tracy Beanz
- Complying, Not Defying: Twitter and the EU Censorship Code
- Ireland’s Assault on Free Speech
- The Economics of Lockdown Panics
- Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up
- Richie Allen
- UK Health Security Agency Launches High Temperature Alert System
- Free Speech Champion Vows To Defend All Views
- Pesticide Firms Hid Brain Toxicity Studies From EU Regulators
- Schoolgirl With Terminal Cancer Was Told It Might Be Stress
- Amazon to Pay $25 Million Over Alexa Privacy Violations
- Labour Would Force Landowners To Sell Below Market Value To Boost Housebuilding
- Couple Fear Wedding Cancellation If Hotel Is Used To House 300 Asylum Seekers
- Scores Of Primary Schools At Risk Of Closure Due To Birth Rate Decline
- Sunak Backs Feminist In Oxford Free Speech Row
- Top Chinese Scientist Won’t Rule Out Covid Lab Leak
- Not A Lot Of People Know That
- Met Office Announce Water Scarcity Alert After Wet Spring!
- Ireland’s mooted cow massacre is a warning to net zero Britain
- Dominic Lawson: Lower tax revenue and higher CO2 emissions: What Starmer’s financially illiterate plan to stop North Sea drilling would really mean for Britain
- What the media won’t tell you about . . . hurricanes–Roger Pielke Jr
- Labour plans to block new North Sea oil fields could cost Scotland £6bn
- Telegraph’s EV Fan Gets A Shock!
- Bournemouth’s Spate Of “Deliberate” Heath Fires
- Yet Another Coffee Scare
- Labour Will Block New North Sea Oil & Gas
- Britain’s Weather A Hundred Years Ago
- No Tricks Zone
- Thwaites ‘Doomsday’ Glacier Narrative Collapses…Total Melt Raises Sea Levels 1-2 mm, Not 3048 mm
- Expert Prof. Gerd Ganteför Calls For More Studies On The Regional Climate Impact By Wind Turbines
- New Study Destroys ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Narrative…Today’s Ice 8 Times 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑟 Than Last 8000 Years
- Cold Grips Globally: Alaska’s 4th Cold Winter… Record Cold Down Under…UK’s Delayed Spring…
- Aarhus University Researchers Find Arctic Warmer, Ice-Free In Summertime 10,000 Years Ago!
- Professors: The Entire Fossil Fuel Industry Must Be ‘Euthanized’ To Save Humanity From Warmth
- German Green Parliamentarian Shocks The Nation…Couldn’t Even Name First German Empire Chancellor!
- Another New Study Shows The Siberian Arctic Is Warmer When CO2 Is Low And Colder As CO2 Rises
- German Greens In Crisis, Plummet 40% In Opinion Polls As Anger Mounts Over Bans, Scandals
- Germany’s Growing List Of Bans: Next Up: Wood Stoves And Heating With Wood!
Aletho News 