PARIS (Reuters) - Two trade unions on Wednesday urged their workers at France's SFR Group (PA:SFRGR) to strike on Sept. 6 in protest at the telecom group's plans to cull 5,000 jobs over the next three years.
In a joint statement, the CGT and CFE-CGC unions accused France's second biggest telecoms company of placing financial interests ahead of workers' rights.
They said the plan was "part of a global strategy that prioritises financial markets at the expense of stable and skilled employment (and) employee working conditions".
Members of the CGT and CFE-CGC, which refused to sign up to the redundancy plan, account for less than half of the group's workforce.
Two other unions representing a majority of the company's workers have already agreed to the job losses that are expected to result in savings of 400 million euros (£342.02 million) annually.
SFR has proposed a redundancy package averaging 2.5 months of salary per year of service, a union official said last week. The redundancy plan will cost around 800 million euros, the company has said.
SFR's rivals have also had to cut costs since the arrival of Iliad's (PA:ILD) low-cost Free Mobile services in 2012. That triggered a price war whose effects are still being felt by the industry.
SFR said on Tuesday that the price war in the French mobile telecoms market was finally showing signs of easing, sending its shares up sharply despite lower quarterly profit.