The Amiens administrative court announced on Monday that it had canceled the dismissal authorizations of 18 protected former employees of the Whirlpool dryer factory in Amiens, a symbol of industrial relocations,
"good news"
for the unions.
Read also: The Stations of the Cross at the former Whirlpool factory in Amiens
"Eighteen protected employees of SAS Whirlpool France working on the Amiens tumble dryer production site, who held mandates as staff representatives or union representatives, have brought requests for cancellation to the court"
of their dismissal, the court recalled in a statement.
In May 2019, the Ministry of Labor authorized the dismissal of these protected employees, considering that the economic reason had been established.
These layoffs were part of the transfer of the entire activity of the establishment from Amiens to Lodz, Poland.
"By its judgments of March 11, 2021, the court considered that there were no serious threats to the safeguard of the competitiveness of the company"
and
"therefore accepted the absence of reality of the economic reason for the redundancies and consequently annulled the decisions authorizing them, ”
the statement said.
"There is at least one justice"
For Frédéric Chantrelle, CFDT Whirlpool delegate, this decision is
"good news"
.
“We say to ourselves that there is at least justice for the employees, in particular all the former Whirlpool workers today in a dramatic situation.
And that it will perhaps be able to slow down all these multinationals which received the money of the CICE and lay off afterwards "
, he declared to AFP, saying that he hoped that
" this will set a precedent "
.
The factory, which employed 246 employees, closed on May 31, 2018, with WN taking over around 160 employees.
The American group had justified the closure in the name of
“safeguarding competitiveness”
in an
“increasingly competitive”
context
.