“My stomach hurts, after 28 years in the box.” Inside the Arc crystal factory, which specializes in glass manufacturing, Olivier Billaud and his colleagues received a real “mass shock” when they learned that they were going to have to drastically reduce their glass production from the beginning of September, and this until at least December.
A third of the site’s employees (1,600 of 4,600) have been partially unemployed since September 1, two days a week, so they will only receive 84% of their salary. In question, the explosion in the price of gas (from 19 million euros in 2019 to an estimated 220 million in 2023) that forced the company to reduce its production, and to stop certain furnaces.
With inflation, “it’s the double penalty”
“Psychologically it’s very difficult. When you’re single, it means staying home alone for a few days, a bit like during Covid. And financially, I don’t even talk about it… I did the math and that should represent a drop in salary from 150 to 200 euros of salary per month”, estimates Olivier Billaud, who learned at the same time that his position was going to be eliminated as part of the reorganization of the company, and that therefore he should be assigned to a new mission in the coming months.
“This rise is hitting us”, estimates Guillaume Rabel Suquet, one of the company’s managers, who estimates that the gas bill has skyrocketed by 400%. “It’s impossible to pass on such increases to product prices,” says Tanguy Tartar, “so employees inevitably fear for the future of the site.”
The concern is twofold for Samuel Dubellay, whose son also works at Northern Glass. The 52-year-old merger assistant will go on partial unemployment next month, but he’s already worried about the loss of purchasing power that will represent.
“We also heat with gas or electricity”
“Il faut bien se dire une chose: c’est qu’on a les mêmes problèmes que les entreprises, nous aussi on se chauffe au gaz ou à l’électricité”, souffle ce salarié de longue date, en charge de l’approvisionnement Sand.
“For it to work, it will have to go through a reorganization within our families: about energy consumption, food, car trips… everything, we will have to be attentive to everything”, confesses this father of four children, one who is still in your care.
Olivier Billaud already plans to use his orchard to limit the note to the end of the month. “I have already begun to redo my accounts the old way, to plan tighter budgets. We are also going to cut the leisure budget, we have no other choice. For example, with my son we planned to go see a football game together. at the velodrome in Marseille, well, that’s not relevant anymore.
“Although we are ingenious, we do not want to find ourselves in the labor market at that age,” says Samuel Dubellay, who fears more than anything the deadline of February 2024, which will mean the end of the APLD system (Agreements partial long-term activity) that allows protect employment that provides for a reduction in the working time of workers by up to 40% of the hours not worked. “If something were to happen, we know how difficult it would be to find something afterwards.”
Produce when electricity is cheaper
But Arc glassware is far from the only one affected by the energy crisis. Starting in November and for a minimum of 4 months, the lens manufacturer Duralex also plans to place 250 employees in short-time jobs at its site in Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin in the Loiret. A way to save half the energy you normally consume.
Ascométal’s steel plant at Fos-sur-Mer in Boûches-du-Rhône has found a way to keep producing steel for a while, while limiting rising costs. From the beginning of the month to the end of October, around a hundred of the plant’s 300 employees have adapted their working hours to produce in time slots in which the price of a Megawatt of electricity is cheaper.
“Energy costs have led us to review our production cycle,” Ugur Yadiz, who holds a scrap supplier position and is also CFE-CGC central coordinator, tells BFMTV.com.
“It requires a great effort on the part of the employees, but they are willing to do it,” says the trade unionist. “They joined because they know that the period is complicated, that it is about the collective effort but morally it begins to pull. It plays a lot in morals and in family life, there is no longer too much balance between professional life and personal life. “.
The fear of having to “pull back the curtain for a while”
However, Ugur Yadiz does not hide that he and his companions are extremely worried about the future. “We don’t really know where we’re going, but everyone is still expecting the machines to go out at the end of the year, in November-December. If prices hit €1,000 per megawatt as some are predicting, we won’t be able to make the cash advance to be able to cover the cost of energy, so we will have no choice but to draw the curtain for a while.
Reduction in the employment of temporary workers, limited operation of the furnaces… Given the drop in orders, the ArcelorMittal company will resort to a partial strike from September 19, both in Dunkirk and in Florange on the Moselle. A way, according to the management, to save the gas necessary for the operation of their machines. Employees will then be compensated at 82.5% of their starting salary per day off.
“The main official reason is the slowdown in the demand for steel in the market”, but for him the company would have ample means not to impose partial unemployment on its employees. The trade unionist, a professional repairman on the construction site, denounces measures “financed with public money.” “Given the 15,000 million euros of profits obtained in 2022, it is indecency to ask the State to deal socially with the impact of the economic situation,” he considers.
Farmer federations (FNSEA, Coopération agricole), agri-food manufacturers (ADEPALE, ANIA, ILEC, FEEF), supermarkets (Perifem) came together this Thursday to launch a “call for help” in the face of the “disproportionate increase in energy costs “. they are facing, as the government is due to present its sobriety plan on Thursday.
Source: BFM TV
