"We did not expect it, it's terrible": between 60 and 80 employees gather in front of the "Brasserie de l'Espérance", owned by Heineken, to express their dissatisfaction the day after the announcement of the closure of the site installed in Schiltigheim since 1862. The closure of the Alsatian brewery threatens 220 jobs.
"Social dialogue will be the priority for the next few months," said the group in a press release, which aims to reach a "collective agreement" around a job protection plan (PSE).
Heineken justifies the cessation of this activity by "the many constraints to which the site is subject", its isolation in the city center which "prevents any expansion", its "excessive production costs due to certain obsolete equipment" and its " strategy of industrial diversification which did not bear fruit".
The volumes produced at Schiltigheim will be transferred to the two other French production sites, at Mons-en-Baroeul and Marseille, which will benefit from a 100 million euro investment plan with a view in particular to their expansion and 'improvement of environmental performance'.
At the change of shift at midday, many employees of the Schiltigheim factory displayed a closed face, while denouncing a “half-surprise”.
“The production volumes were leaving, there had been no more investment for several years, the equipment was not renewed”, explained to AFP a worker with “more than 30 years of seniority”, asking to stay anonymous.
“That was long before the health crisis, long before the war in Ukraine.
But there, all the excuses were there to close.
It's opportunism, it's cynical.
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"It's a blow for everyone," conceded Didier Deregnaucourt, CGT delegate, announcing a strike for the day on Tuesday.
Another employee recalled that a closure plan, drawn up in 2013, had been abandoned.
Heineken, the second largest brewer in the world behind AB InBev, had recorded a net profit of 3.32 billion euros in 2021, after losses of 204 million euros in 2020, a year marked by the Covid-19 pandemic.