The union's general secretary Sophie Binet is calling in particular for a strengthening of the Florange law, which requires large companies to look for a buyer during a closure project.
Tens of thousands of jobs on the line? The general secretary of the CGT Sophie Binet warned of a “very strong acceleration of the deterioration of the situation” in terms of social plans, mainly in industry but also in other sectors, in an interview to the Echoes this Wednesday, November 27.
While she spoke in May of 130 social plans representing 33,021 direct jobs eliminated or “highly threatened” (60,000 including subcontracting and temporary work), then at the beginning of November nearly 200 social plans and 150,000 jobs threatened by a “violent industrial bloodletting”Sophie Binet now evokes “nearly 250 layoff plans in preparation, affecting between 170,000 and 200,000 jobs”. This count, carried out based on feedback from workers' union activists, unsurprisingly concerns sectors in crisis such as automobiles and aerospace, but also mass distribution, according to the head of the union center.
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Emergency measures
Sophie Binet fears “a tidal wave” in the coming months, fearing cascading plans: “These plans take place mainly in large companies, restructuring risks having consequences on small subcontractors, who are much more numerous.” To explain this rise in power, she points “the responsibility of large companies”who according to her “made the choice during the period of inflation to increase their margins and their prices to increase their dividends”with the consequence of a drop in investments, a drop in wages in constant euros “and therefore a reduction in consumption”.
Among the emergency measures advocated by Sophie Binet: “a return to regulated prices” energy for industry, “which takes into account the cost of production” and investments necessary for the relaunch of nuclear power, the establishment by Europe of customs barriers “more protective”but also “a strengthening of the Florange law”. The general secretary of the CGT proposes that this law, which requires companies with more than 1,000 employees to seek a buyer in the event of a planned closure, be extended to “companies with 50 or more employees”.
Sophie Binet also requests a “moratorium on layoffs to prevent companies from laying off workers while a site recovery solution is sought”. Considering that the Florange law, “does not prevent certain companies from preferring to close their site rather than cede it to the competition”she judges “necessary to strengthen sanctions” in the event of closure of a site and that employee representatives also have “their say on takeover projects”. She finally believes that it is necessary “require management to inform Bpifrance of any site closure plans” and that the public investment bank “can also be entered by staff representatives”. In the longer term, it calls for “real general statements of the industry to put everything back on track”.
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