a factory offers its employees a transfer to Portugal… with a lower salary

In Charente, employees of the Sanifirst faucet factory (Presto Group) were surprised to receive a strange proposal from their management.

The company has decided to relocate part of its production to Portugal, offering an on-site transfer… with a salary sometimes divided by three.

While the company claims to respect the law, its employees denounce a lack of consideration.

Leaving Charente for Portugal… with a salary divided by three. This is the proposal received by most of the last nine employees of Sanifirst, in Gond-Pontouvre, manufacturer of laboratory valves. The Presto group, to which the company belongs, has decided to close its Charente site by the end of the year. Hamid Fodil, one of these employees, was offered a position in Portugal paid at 830 euros gross per month. “Currently, I have a net salary of 1,600 euros per month. I have my family and social life in Charente. This proposition is absurd.he protests in the 8 p.m. TF1 report visible at the top of this article.

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“I was offered to go to Portugal for a salary of 1,200 euros gross”in turn indicates Victor Costa, workshop manager within the same company. “Today, I earn almost 3,000 euros gross…”he specifies.

This faucet manufacturing plant is almost at a standstill. If around thirty employees were active there ten years ago, the Presto group announces that it is today too loss-making. “I am one year from retirement, so if I go to Portugal, I will no longer contribute to the French pension. So I will lose my long career, and I will find myself working for a long time. »alerts Bruno Dauvergne, warehouse worker at Sanifirst.

Greater Angoulême demands a refund

The urban community is also stunned. Greater Angoulême, owner of the premises, had granted the company a reduction on its rents of 300,000 euros over ten years. The money will ultimately never be recovered, with no repayment obligation weighing on companies with fewer than 1,000 employees.

“It’s public money, and what is even more shocking is that the development of this company is based on contracts with National Education and hospitals”says Gérard Dezier, vice-president in charge of works and heritage of the Greater Angoulême Urban Community.

Alongside those transferred to Portugal, the company is reclassifying three employees to other sites in France. “These transfer proposals were formulated exclusively as alternatives to the outright dismissal of employees”comments the Presto group. A system often doomed to failure, according to some experts. “If the obligation to offer positions abroad disappeared in 2017, it is because we realized, on the ground, that it was of absolutely no use,” explains Me Déborah David, lawyer specializing in labor law, interviewed in our report. The factory will close its doors at the end of March 2025.