192 jobs are threatened at the Farnell company in Grâce-Hollogne. On Tuesday, the management announced to the workers’ representatives its intention to purely and simply close the site for the last quarter of this year.
Farnell is an electronic component distribution platform. The company is based in Leeds, UK.
For the 192 workers at its Grace-Hollogne site, the blow is hard, even if this announcement is not a total surprise. Daniel Maratta, permanent FGTB, explains: “The management’s proposal to lay off around 30 people a few months ago was stopped thanks to a collective agreement which allowed them to work 32 hours a week and be paid 38. This made it possible to maintain employment. But production hasn’t taken off since that time, since September last year, and today they come to tell us that since there’s a problem with split shipments, so between England and Belgium, Liège in particular, we had to delete one site, the least productive. So it’s Liège that’s in it, what… At the time of Brexit, I had questioned the management about the impact for Liège. I’m waiting always the answer.”
The trade unionist adds: “We are going to go into questions within the framework of the Renault law. First meeting is June 1. It’s a group that makes a profit. It’s not a bankrupt company here, huh. Since 2021 , we are asking for the figures, which we still do not have. So we will only start the procedure when we have the figures for 2021 and 2022, endorsed by a reviewer. Afterwards, we can start the Renault procedure.
