The management of the automotive supplier Marelli announced this Wednesday an employment protection plan (PSE) at its factory in Argentina (Orne), which should lead to its closure at the beginning of 2024 and the dismissal of its 167 employees, according to the inter-union CGT. , CFE-CGC, CFDT. According to the inter-union, the management also announced the closure of a second factory, that of Saint-Julien-Du-Sault (Yonne).
“After several months of lies and deception by the management of the Marelli group, the sentence has fallen: the opening of a PSE with the only perspective, the definitive closure at the beginning of 2024 of the historic Marelli site based in Argentan. since 1970,” the inter-union indicated in a press release.
This announcement “is only the conclusion of a relocation process decided and initiated by the group for several months,” lamented the CGT, the CFE-CGC and the CFDT, who see in particular the influence of the majority shareholder, the American fund KKR. . Contacted by AFP, representatives of the factory management did not react on Wednesday.
Relocation to Slovakia
At the beginning of the year, employees went on strike for three weeks, after discovering at the end of 2022 elements that made them fear a transfer of the factory’s activities, especially to Slovakia. The social movement is sold by an agreement with the direction that guarantees a year of sursis, or three other tracks, which is a powerful repreneur, that is, it is necessary to inform the AFP of a representative of the intersyndicale joint venture. phone.
“These three routes failed, we learned in July that the buyer was throwing in the towel,” says the same source, “however, we thought that we would be protected until early 2024, thanks to the agreement.”
At the end of the PSE, which should “last three months”, “167 employees will be unemployed, due to the aforementioned transfer of our production lines to Slovakia”, indicated the representative of the inter-union. “We did not expect it, people took a hard blow to the head,” says this source, although since the closure, two weeks ago, of a “sister factory” in Italy, a foundry that delivered the parts to Argentan for assembly , “We were very, very pessimistic.”
“Incomprehension”
The announcement generated “a lot of emotion, some people were crying,” he continued, emphasizing that some “had been working there for 40 years.” The mayor of Argentan, Frédéric Leveillé, expressed his “support” for the factory employees in a press release, referring to a “disastrous decision” for the workers and the region.
“This decision is a misunderstanding for all of us, because two recently commissioned audits (…) demonstrated the competitiveness of the site,” he said, “I strongly denounce the decision of the American-Japanese pension fund KKR, majority shareholder of Marelli, to sacrifice the Argentan factory, with the sole objective of seeking profitability in the short term.
This former Solex factory produces throttle bodies, which supply air to gasoline engines, for cars of many brands, but also, for example, for BMW motorcycles. An extraordinary CSE will be held on October 12.
Source: BFM TV
