Lucent Technologies Inc, which is trying to eliminate some 49,500 jobs worldwide, will meet with French unions on Wednesday to discuss trimming its European workforce, a spokeswoman said.
Executives at the biggest US maker of phone equipment met European employee representatives last Thursday, said Marie-Dominique Bonardi, a spokeswoman at Lucent France. French executives will do the same with local unions, she said.
``It will be tougher to fire workers in France because unions see work as sacred and public opinion is against firing people,'' said Michael Kraland, who helps manage about US$100 million at Trinity Capital Partners in Paris.
Lucent, which in May rejected a merger with France's Alcatel SA, plans to trim US$4 billion in annual expenses and introduce new products to return to profitability. Like rivals Alcatel and Nortel Networks Corp, Lucent has suffered this year as phone companies, its clients, scaled back spending on their networks in response to slower economic growth.
``We can't tell for the moment'' how many jobs will go in Europe, because unions in each country, which also include Germany, the UK, Italy and Spain, must be informed first, Bonardi said. ``We'll announce it as soon as possible.'' Lucent is looking for a buyer for its Nuremberg plant and plans to cut as many as 630 jobs there, or about 17 percent of the workforce, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported yesterday, citing Reynaldo Zavalo, head of the plant's works council. The plant employs 3,700 people.
The US company, whose shares have shed more than 50 percent this year, employs about 20,000 people in Europe.
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