A hundred employees gathered on Friday morning in front of the Bridgestone tire plant in Béthune (Pas-de-Calais), doomed to closure.
At the call of the inter-union, they protested against the turn of the negotiations with a management which "
tries to buy time
".
The Japanese tire giant confirmed on November 12 its plan to shut down the plant, which employs 863 people, in 2021.
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“
Management is trying to save time, we are not going to let it go, it is dragging out.
We are warning management, it will harden.
We are ready to fight so that there is a buyer and for the PSE, that the employees leave with dignity,
”declared Bruno Wable, CGT deputy secretary in front of the Pas-de-Calais plant.
"
Management must change its attitude,
" said the president of the regional council Xavier Bertrand (ex-LR).
"
They are still not doing what is necessary, the negotiations they started yesterday (...) It is not a surprise, it is not going well
", he added.
The government wants to "
put activity back on the site
"
A PES negotiation meeting was held on Thursday on pensions and early retirement without an agreement, according to the unions.
"
We thought we would reach an agreement, and the management stopped negotiations,
" said Stéphane Ducrocq, lawyer for the Intersyndicale.
“
Our leaders are pure provocation.
We want an agreement theme by theme
”and“
they want to mix everything up
, ”echoed Denis Drouet, CFDT union representative.
"
We know that the factory will close (...) we want to show the strength of the inter-union to influence the negotiations,
" he added.
The employees "
are revolted
" but "
they will not go to the fault
" to preserve the hopes of recovery of the site, for its part estimated on BFMTV the Minister in charge of Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
"
Our goal is to bring activity back to the site, we had offered Bridgestone to do it with them, they refused, we will do it without them,
" she said.
Read also: Employment: the number of PES continues to increase, 657 plans initiated since March
She also assured that employees would benefit from "
easy access to all the proposals in the Béthune basin to be able to allow them to bounce back professionally quickly
".
The aim is to “
get activity back on the Bridgestone site
” as quickly as possible.
