They had threatened to blow up their factory in 2017. Finally, the company was taken over by the GMD group to become “LSI”. The emblematic automotive subcontractor from Souterraine (Creuse) now seems to be under threat again. The site currently employs 82 employees, worried about their future, and determined to fight again.
“I was supposed to retire in 2025, I took nine extra months with Mr. Macron’s retirement law, so now it will be July 2026, I’m not there yet,” notes Patrick Brun, CGT delegate at LSI.
Having worked for 41 years at the Souterraine site, he is tired of these years of hard work and also sad to see the difficulties that are once again undermining his business. Retirement seems all the more distant to him because he is not sure he will work until then.
Future of automotive supplier LSI seriously threatened
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© France 3 Limousin
No more PSA contracts, no more car orders. Only Air Liquide ensures a minimum of sustainable activity for the Creuse company. In the short term, it is the future of the site that is at stake.
“The group is for sale, we are dependent on buyers or not. We are living day to day at the moment. We are already working Fridays, we are very worried about the months to come. We can see that turnover is falling, we are eating into our cash flow, and given the way things are going, it won’t last long,” Dominique Lacherade, a technician in the welding workshop, is alarmed.
In difficulty in 2017, the Souterraine site was then taken over by the GMD group, 600 employees were then working on the Souterraine site, to operate fourteen presses. A rescue after a period of great tension where the employees had even threatened to blow up the factory.
Today, after the covid crisis and the concerns in 2020, after receiving state support in 2021, and a hope of orders in 2022, only four of these machines are working, and even then, not full time. And there are only 82 employees left, with an average age of 57.
“The future has never been bright. There were 600 of them ten years ago, today there are eighty of them, it’s a slow decline. We were clear from the start when we took over the business. We are automotive subcontractors, we don’t know how to diversify our business.“, justifies the CEO of GMD, Alain Martineau.
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Also a victim of the difficulties of the automobile industry, the French equipment manufacturer, which has 47 sites in fourteen countries, is now for sale. Its CEO says that if the group is taken over, the LSI subsidiary will be part of the package.
But Alain Martineau does not hide his face: the site is oversized, badly located. To save it, it would have to be converted : “We need to find other outlets, but it’s complicated. These are machines and men who work for the automobile industry, who produce 1,000 parts per hour. What are the markets where 1,000 parts per hour are needed?” he asks himself, without having an answer to give.
We’re going to fight!
Dominique Lacheradetechnician at the LSI welding workshop
The GMD group is currently developing a CV for the Souterraine site, in order to better target its potential. As for the employees, they are preparing for action, to try to save their factory, once again.
