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Bridgestone: government announces "method agreement" to discuss for five months

2020-09-20T13:04:58.893Z


"The management is in the process of organizing itself into a negotiation process", welcomed the Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher on Sunday.


The management of Bridgestone and the employees of the Béthune plant, in the Pas-de-Calais, on Friday signed an “method agreement” allowing five months to discuss “alternative scenarios to the closure” announced on Wednesday by the giant Japanese tire industry.

This is what the Minister for Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher said on Sunday to the “Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI”.

"The management is getting organized in a negotiation process," she said, saying that "five months makes things possible".

“Social dialogue is essential, it must be based on trust,” she added.

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The minister, however, criticized the method adopted so far by the management of the Japanese giant.

“What is unacceptable […] is not to have opened the discussion upstream of this brutal announcement”, she judged.

"We knew that the plant was losing momentum" and the authorities had invited "the management of Bridgestone to the discussion table to precisely look at how we could regain productivity and competitiveness".

It has also ruled out that the State returns to the capital of the company, a "false solution" which "solves nothing".

“The heart of the matter is to have an industrial project that holds up”, according to her.

"Absolute mobilization"

Agnès Pannier-Runacher and the Minister of Labor, Elisabeth Borne, will go to Béthune Monday morning "to see everyone, everyone: local elected officials, local management" and "talk to European management", recalled the minister.

"There is an absolute mobilization for this site", according to government spokesman Gabriel Attal, who "believes in political pressure" and underlines "a form of political harmony around this issue".

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Japanese manufacturer Bridgestone announced on Wednesday its intention to close its Béthune plant in 2021, which employs 863 people in the manufacture of car tires.

An announcement which the government and the president of Hauts-de-France Xavier Bertrand denounced "the brutality, the relevance and the foundations".

“If Bridgestone has an investment plan of 200 million euros, the State and the region can finance a large part of it with the recovery plan,” said Xavier Bertrand in an interview published on Saturday by Le Parisien.

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The Béthune plant, which produces automotive tires under the Bridgestone and Firestone brands, has been experiencing difficulties for a long time.

It is "the least efficient" among the ten factories of the group in Europe, says management.

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2020-09-20

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