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By Sybille de La Hamaide
PARIS, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Unions at sugar cooperative Tereos on Tuesday called a strike at the group's French factories on Dec. 9 to express their support for management, after several members found guilty of making false accusations against the group were elected to the board.
The action comes after several years of internal feuding at Tereos which has seen so-called "rebel" cooperative members raising concerns about the group's financial results, and just days before an election on Friday for the role of board chairman.
Eight cooperative members last year accused Tereos, the world's second largest sugar maker by volume, of what they termed terrorism for delivering potentially dangerous sorbitol, a sugar alcohol, to Islamic State.
Paris' anti-terrorist authorities dismissed the case. Tereos filed a libel suit against the accusers and won the case late last month.
But just days later three of the eight members who made the allegations were elected or re-elected to the group's supervisory board, a move the group's four unions condemned.
They say one of the members could be elected as board chairman in Friday's vote and lead, through a change in top management, a major strategy shift that could involve the sale of assets.
"We want to give the management board the employees' support," Lionel Cavennes, secretary of Tereos' joint union committee, told Reuters.
The strike would only have a small impact on sugar output, which could be caught up later in the season, he said.
Tereos has been grappling with low prices after the end of European sugar quotas in 2017 but earnings have been improving as prices rebounded.
Germany's Suedzucker branch Saint Louis Sucre and cooperative group Cristal Union have both closed two factories in France, the European Union's top sugar beet producer. (Reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide; Editing by Gus Trompiz and Jan Harvey)
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REFILE-Tereos unions call strike to back management in board tussle - Successful Farming
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