Thread regarding Synopsys Inc. layoffs

@d0 Agreed!
How can we well unite together to do this strike? Anyone has any idea of communication method?

Let's all go on strike on the 5th then!!!
There is a All Hands in France the 6th, so it could be a strong signal just before !

I’m @a3 from the comments, thanks all of you for clarification. I know I may have come across as a bit defensive but I’ve seen passing everyday conversations about offshoring to my country whenever a layoff is announced (like the recent Microsoft one, even though my country was also amongst the ones impacted) and it tends to irritate me these days because it being a “low-cost” site is largely an outdated stereotype.

Good luck to all of you. I hope you succeed. Perhaps if there’s success in France, which I strongly hope there is, it’ll inspire Synopsys and Ansys employees from around the world to rise up to this unethical functioning go the company that cares nothing about the workers. And honestly? Even investors don’t have faith in the CEO given the current state of the stock prices from right after the acquisition.

@cv Careful: don't use company-issued devices or tools to call for a strike. Talk to people around you, invite them to read this thread, convince them to join and to snowball the movement by pulling more colleagues.
You can also ask them for a personal contact and use that to discuss.

And of course, our managers and supervisors will keep feeding us the usual empty reassurances. I understand that some of them may genuinely have no say in the layoff decisions, but let’s not be naive: some are definitely involved, and they will never tell us the full story. Their priority is to keep everyone calm and productive so we carry on working hard, while they get to demonstrate their so-called management skills to upper management and potentially secure their own bonuses and salary increases for 2027. We need to stop taking these reassurances at face value and start looking at what’s actually happening.

Et bien sûr, nos managers et superviseurs vont continuer à nous servir leurs éternels discours rassurants qui ne veulent pas dire grand-chose. Je comprends que certains n’aient probablement aucun pouvoir dans les décisions de licenciement, mais soyons lucides : certains sont forcément impliqués, et ils ne nous diront jamais toute la vérité. Leur priorité, c’est de nous calmer pour qu’on continue à travailler dur et à atteindre nos objectifs, pendant qu’eux peuvent mettre en avant leurs soi-disant compétences managériales auprès de la direction pour espérer décrocher leurs bonus et leurs augmentations de salaire en 2027. Il faut arrêter de prendre leurs belles paroles pour argent comptant et regarder la réalité en face.

Honestly, I feel like this is almost our last chance to react, especially since November 5 is already a national strike day. What I find both absurd and heartbreaking is that while management is discussing how to get rid of 65 people, the rest of us are still working hard to meet our year-end targets. It’s like being a sheep about to be sold by its owner, while still helping the owner count the money! At some point, we need to wake up, stand together and make our voices heard. If not now, when?

I’m in for the November 5 strike! Should we send an email to all Ansys and Synopsys employees based in France to get more people involved?

So we all go for November 5th then? Ansys France and Synopsys France employees?

@a3, I agree with your concern, I had teammates in India, Canada, UK who were all impacted in September and I’m quite sure I’d be on the list this time in France. I apologise on behalf of @OP for making it look like there is delocalisation in France and ours is the only country impacted, which is not true. However, for the rest of what he/she said, it’s very true.

@c7 I'm in for Nov 5. And I agree with what was said.

One minor adjustment though: there is no obligation by law to notify the employer before going on strike. It is up to them to notice the employee's absence and to ask for an explanation. That's when employees can reply that they were on strike because fu-k off.
Source: https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F117

As mentioned below, Nov 5 is an easy first step as we are covered by the unions' national call. On the following days, we have to be at least two to continue the strike (see the source above).

If you agree with that, please spread the word around you. Some will push back. Others will shy away. But some will agree. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, you know.

Don't be afraid of fighting while you still have an opportunity. This second PSE is not going to be the last. Don't expect the work council to be of any help as they proved yesterday they did not even have the right mindset to protect us.

@a3 I agree that sentence "ils vont tout délocaliser dans des pays low-cost" is not true. There is no relocation, they reduce workforce to increase profit, that's all, and they don't care about the consequences for worker lives, regardless of the country.

But I agree with the rest.

For the context, it is a reaction following a Teams meeting that Ansys France representatives held yesterday, October 30 (Ansys France and Synopsys France still have separated structures). They clearly expressed they want to negotiate layoff package and conditions with the direction without be accountable to Ansys france employees, and rejected the idea of a call for a strike. My feeling is that many employees are OK with that, but not all.

For those who are not OK with this "strategy", including me, I think it is up to us to act on our own without waiting for the green light from representatives (there won't be any).
In Ansys/Synopys France, there are mainly white-collar workers who have never gone on strike, or even been to a simple protest. So, talk about strike when there are layoffs is legitimate, but we cannot expect that many agree with that type action. During first layoffs plans in France, we already did a call for a strike on this forum last January, and it didn't catch on. But we can give another try!

"Concrètement, comment on peut s’organiser pour faire grève ?".
What can be easily done first, to break the fear to strike, is to follow the national call for strike from the Unions, November 5.

With such a national call, every worker can strike, no need to be part of a union (there is no union in Ansys/Synopsys France). November 5, you inform your HR by email that you will be on strike for the day, or half a day, because you follow the national call (pdf of the call can be found on the internet), and that's all. They will reply that you will be unpaid the time you are on strike. There is even a category for it in Time Off...

Refer to the national call for the strike is a minimum, it would be better to also add claims related with layoffs.
If by November 5, the idea of going on strike this day seems to catch on (by feedbacks at offices, or this forum, personal exchanges, etc), a text can be shared in the forum to be addressed to the direction.
(And even better, would be to form groups of Synopsys workers in cities where there are protests!)

If only few people do that, it could appear as waste of money, an open door for retaliation, etc, but as any simple strike, that millions of workers all around the world regularly try to defend themself.

Direction will not communicate the number of people on strike. November 5, a thread "I am on strike today" can be opened, and I invite people on strike to do a reply, so we can have a count.

If Synopsys France employees read this post, it is addressed to you too! We are on the same boat.

@b8 Yep. Quarterly layoffs (Not regular PIPs) in US are the new normal. Welcome to the world capital of the Capitalism. Plus MAGA culture everywhere with the orange man, best place to live in the world, isn't it????

mes amis, works council is a joke, also here across the rhine... they either buy them out or they turn em into controlled marionettes.
Go on strike!!
Only language this predator company understands.
Nobody else has the ba--s to stand up against them, thus far, but you do!! That could trigger a whole wave world-wide.

We had 4 waves of layoff in North America, so far.

Concrètement, comment on peut s’organiser pour faire grève ? En tout cas, moi, je suis partante. J’ai vraiment l’impression qu’on est des agneaux qu’on envoie à l’abattoir. Il y a un vrai manque de transparence : on ne nous dit jamais tout, on a toujours l’impression qu’on nous cache une partie des informations. Et franchement, je suis convaincue qu’après cette deuxième vague, il y en aura une troisième. Si on ne réagit pas maintenant, on va finir par être de moins en moins nombreux. À un moment, il faut qu’on se mobilise et qu’on montre qu’on ne va pas se laisser faire.

I am not French, and I stumbled across this post while casually browsing. Even with translation, the message came through, and quite frankly, I find the perspective expressed here rather short-sighted.
As a manager based in one of the so-called 'low-cost' countries in Asia—a label that is increasingly outdated despite common assumptions—I lost half of my team in the most recent wave back in September. It is frustrating to see such self-centered framing, as if your country is the only one bearing the brunt of these decisions. These layoffs have been brutal across literally all major sites around the world.
At the same time, the company continues to list hundreds of open positions on the job portal while failing to actively interview for most of them right here in my location. This is a systemic, global crisis happening everywhere. Looking down upon employees of the same company simply because they are in a different location is nothing more than arrogance, especially when it is entirely clear that everyone across the board is equally impacted by this. The company is being unethical, that’s all. And employees of every country has the same concern of paying back EMIs, groceries, taking care of their family, pursuing their hobbies and simply enjoying life in the midst of the stress that the layoff is putting everyone through.