Belgians 'Boss-Nap' Fiat Executives in Brussels

Woe betide European executives who try to negotiate labor give-backs with the rank-and-file. They're likely to get "boss-napped," as three Fiat executives now find themselves in Brussels.

Executives from Fiat -- which is completing a tie-up with struggling U.S. automaker Chrysler -- had come to the Fiat sales office in Brussels to lay off staffers, Reuters and Italian news agencies are reporting.

The Belgians were having none of it. They have blocked the executives in the building and are preventing them from leaving, according to an unnamed source at the Fiat office who talked to Reuters.

"A number of the staff are blocking the door. The management can't leave. We are discussing the closure, the situation is calm," the source told Reuters.

Boss-napping appears to have become the labor tactic du jour among Europeans, who evidently are tired of picketing, building barricades and getting only six weeks of vacation per year.

The most recent one ended on Wednesday when workers at an adhesive-tape factory in southern France released four managers they held overnight.

-- Frank Ahrens
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