Worried about a social plan “large-scale”, the CFDT denounces “strategic wanderings” of the Auchan group “which generated hundreds of millions of euros in expenses, even losses”deplores René Carette, CFDT central union delegate (majority union) at Auchan, guest, Tuesday November 5, of France Bleu Nord.
Auchan is in difficulty. The northern mass distribution group is calling several meetings with the unions this Tuesday. The group currently employs 54,000 people. But up to 2,300 jobs are threatened by this job protection plan, France Bleu Nord learned this Tuesday from a union source, confirming information from La Lettre and AFP.
The CFDT has been denouncing strategic errors since “several years”. “Every six months or a year and a half the CEOs change. We also see all the strategic wanderings, notes René Carette, CFDT central union delegate. We set up projects that go back immediately, but between two, these are still projects that have generated hundreds of millions of euros in expenses, or even losses.”
For example, automatic checkouts. “Auchan suddenly very quickly wanted to have a large majority of automatic checkouts in these stores”analyzes René Carette. The problem, “It’s theft.” According to the trade unionist, Auchan lost “more than 100 million euros in the theft” on these machines. “The bad choices of the company, it is still the employees who will pay and the taxpayers too”he regrets.
The union delegate denounces a “accumulation” deterioration of working conditions since Covid: “Quite the contrary, working conditions have only deteriorated since then, even though these companies had still benefited from millions of euros in state aid. Since then, we have only been reducing the workforce , working conditions are deplorable. With this announcement of the social plan, “the employees take another blow to the head and are afraid. They no longer believe in the company at all”deplores the elected CFDT.
Finally, franchised stores could contribute to worsening the social plan. “They tell us that the hypermarkets would not be impacted. But there is no longer much trust between us in the face of all their errors, their lies or everything they hide from us”believes René Carette. For “supermarkets have already been announced”, Auchan wants “go as far as possible on the franchise and we expect that subsequently, it will be the hypermarkets”due to “the decline in square meters” stores, concludes the CFDT.
