2023-09-05 11:53:23
While the factory has been blocked for a week by the employees, the unions have been invited to Bercy next Monday to discuss the current social plan, which threatens 187 jobs.
A social conflict that persists, and soon an appointment at the Ministry of the Economy. For a week, the Condat paper mills, the largest private employer in the Dordogne and former French industrial flagship, have been blocked by employees of the Lardin-Saint-Lazare site. They are protesting against the social plan, approved on June 20 by the Spanish group Lecta, owner of the factory. This job protection plan (PSE) should lead to the shutdown of a production line and the elimination of 187 jobs, or nearly half of the workers at the factory, located in the town of 1,700 inhabitants. .
If it is not the first industrial site threatened in France, the social movement which takes place there seems to be watched with attention in the highest spheres of the State. To the point that the unions and employees have been invited by the executive to Bercy next Monday, for a meeting where the current social plan will be discussed. Information announced by Force Ouvrière to France Bleu Périgord on Sunday, then confirmed at Figaro this Monday by the office of the Minister Delegate for Industry, Roland Lescure.
«We expect a lot from this meeting, we want the State to position itself and take its responsibilities», urges Jean-François Sarlat, union representative CFE-CGC of the factory, near the Figaro. And this one to point out the speech of reindustrialization of the country of Emmanuel Macron, which would apply perfectly according to him to the paper mills of Condat, a site which is moreover “very advanced in environmental matters».
To publicize their case, the employees have benefited, in recent days, from a little boost. Former President François Hollande thus provided support to employees and used his network. Last Friday, they were entitled to a videoconference call with the former head of the socialist state (2012-2017), during which he assured them that he would return “in contact with the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Culture“, reported South West. A few hours later, the CGT received a phone call from Bercy, said CGT representative Philippe Delord to France Bleu.
Read alsoDordogne: social plan under discussion at the Condat paper mill, 187 jobs threatened
Decline from the 2000s
For the unions, beyond a simple factory, it is a question of saving a basin of life. “It would be a disaster for the residents. If there was a PSE, the employees concerned would find themselves unemployed in November, just before Christmas, a not easy period.“says Jean-François Sarlat, of the CFE-CGC. This also explains the mobilization of local elected officials from the department, such as MP Pascale Martin, who said to herself “angry», in an interview to South West. Same thing for the regional councilwhich demanded the reimbursement of 19 million euros in advance paid to Lecta in 2020 to modernize a line of the site.
Because this site is a real local monument. Created in 1907, originally producing tanning products for the leather industry, the factory turned to the production of paper pulp in 1923, before acquiring its first paper machine in 1931. In 1962 the company “Paper mills Condat SA», with the arrival of a second paper machine.
The Spanish group Lecta took over the flourishing site at the end of the 1990s, but the activity then declined during the following decade. Struck by the difficulties of the paper sector, the factory experienced its first PSE in 2007, then its second in 2013. While it employed 1,200 people in the early 1990s, it only has around 400 today. today. In 2020, the Condat paper mills even came close to disappearing, victims of the crisis in the paper industry and the weight of foreign competition. They finally benefited at that time from aid of 19 million euros from the New Aquitaine region, as part of a vast restructuring plan.
Finally, last June, faced with “the sharp drop in the graphic paper market», Lecta has announced a plan to shut down line 4 of the Condat plant, producing two-sided coated paper. “Lecta plans to concentrate the know-how and resources of the Condat plant on line 8 dedicated to the production of special papers, glassine and one-sided coated paper“, adds the company. Last week, the management of the group, created from the merger of the companies Torraspapel (Spain), Garda Cartiere (Italy) and Condat, said it was maintaining its project and continuing negotiations on the PSE. “A necessary measure to face the current challenges and maintain the competitiveness of the company“, estimated the company, which hopes “return to performance from 2024, by continuously increasing the rate of return, and thus strengthen Condat’s competitiveness over the long term».
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