The oldest have been carrying Air France luggage for over thirty years.
"With 20-kilo suitcases, that's more than a half ton to lift per day," calculates a CBS porter.
Connecting Bag Services is a subsidiary of the World Flight Services (WFS) group, with 22,000 employees worldwide, one of the world's freight leaders.
Baggage handler, a painful job, but with their salaries of “€ 1,850 on average excluding premiums”, the CBS have long been the envy of the platform's handlers.
But that was before the Covid.
Today, their fate is no longer a dream: of the 430 employees currently, 195 layoffs hang in their face, 300 perhaps.
The air is going badly, everyone repeats it.
But near the tracks, we regularly hear, and not only in the ranks of CBS, that the Covid also has a good back to degrease at low cost.
Today, the company is in the process of being sold and WFS is a candidate to take over its own subsidiary with 195 fewer jobs.
"We suspect an organized bankruptcy", accuses Abdelaziz Mouchafi, secretary of the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) of CBS which also holds Air France responsible.
A look back in four acts on a dreaded scenario when "20,000 to 30,000 jobs risk disappearing" out of 90,000 on the Roissy platform according to trade unions, all of whose companies have been heavily impacted by the health crisis for a year .
Employees are thus all called to a new "march to defend employment" this Thursday.
Act I, summer 2020. Forced holidays and partial unemployment
The letter from the HRD is dated June 10.
“
You will be on leave from July 4 to 19.
Regarding the resumption of activity, it remains weak and uncertain, you will remain in partial activity until further notice.
".
"If it continues, it's a disaster!
»Confided to us at that time a porter of CBS, 50 years old, three children.
He had worked six days in April, eight in May, and was already tightening his belt to fill the fridge.
In June 2020, Air France suspended the contract for a baggage sorter, a contract which normally ran until November 2021. Of the three sorters entrusted to CBS, it was the most profitable.
“The company's economic equilibrium was based on this contract.
Air France suspended the contract unilaterally without discussion, ”deplores the CSE.
Even though a safeguard clause provided for discussions between the two parties in particular in the event of an epidemic.
Air France and WFS have not replied to us on this point.
Act II, autumn 2020. Attempt at conciliation under the aegis of Bercy
A judicial administrator is appointed by the commercial court of Bobigny (Seine-Saint-Denis), solutions are sought, with Air France, and several meetings are linked, with the interministerial committee for industrial restructuring (CIRI), which depends on the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
The CIRI supports companies with more than 400 employees in difficulty, even in times of pandemic.
Out of 70 cases handled in 2020, 95% resulted in the rescue of the company, or nearly 55,000 jobs retained, including in the airline industry, with Corsair.
The solution is being built together: debts are abandoned, equity capital reinjected and the State also provides aid.
But CBS was not one of the lucky ones.
"The weight of liabilities was too important to allow the WFS group, given the outlook for activity, to present a recovery plan," the ministry said.
The pill is all the more bitter for the baggage handlers as when it was necessary to relaunch another subsidiary of the WFS group, in the past, it was CBS who got their hands on the wallet, even if it meant getting poorer. .
Act III.
Legal redress and psychological support for Christmas
At the end of its cash flow, CBS went into insolvency and then into receivership.
"The use of partial unemployment has avoided redundancies so far", tells us WFS, which has not yet resorted to a larger device.
In this case, the long-term partial activity, which would have ensured a safety net until 2024. "This device could make it possible to preserve most or even all of the jobs", one can read in a report by expertise Secafi, firm requested by the staff representatives, and which did not wish to answer us.
This device involves the participation of the employer.
According to estimates, the remainder to save jobs would be 6 to 8 million euros over three years.
But WFS insists: “The continuation plan depends on negotiations with Air France.
The contact details of a psychologist were provided to employees at the end of November, given "the stress and anxiety likely to be generated by the procedure".
Act IV, March 2021. The WFS group candidate for the takeover of its own subsidiary
Stress and sleepless nights, there are still some.
It was enough to go to the Pentahotel, a hotel in Roissy-en-France, Thursday March 11 to see it.
In a room on the ground floor, was held the great oral of the candidates for the recovery.
The Onet company in the morning (300 layoffs) and WFS (195 layoffs) in the afternoon.
The day ended in tears.
"We are too old, too expensive, too worn out ..." "We have learned that Air France, which has received 7 billion euros in state aid, is asking for a 20% reduction in our costs production and refuses to participate in the financing of our partial activity ”, laments a porter.
Four days earlier, they also learned of the brutal death of a 50-year-old colleague.
"He died at home, after his day's work, he was very worried about the situation", relates an employee.
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There is nothing illegal about a group applying for the takeover of its own subsidiary, according to one observer.
“But here, it's a textbook case,” he adds.
We see a group depositing a subsidiary in a context linked to Covid without having to bear the cost of layoffs, while it could benefit from State measures for companies in difficulty.
When we go into receivership, the cord is cut, and it costs less to fire.
"
The staff representatives have just sent an open letter to Anne Rigail, the CEO of Air France, in the name of a "flawless commitment of thirty years".
Without answering our questions in detail, Air France, "at 40% of its usual activity", specifies that it "remained in permanent contact with those involved in the case, holding numerous exchanges with the receiver, WFS and the buyers. potentials in order to give them visibility and guarantees on future activity ”.
The buyers have until March 29 to finalize their offer with the commercial court.
The Bobigny prosecutor's office will have to give its opinion.
The employees study all possible legal hypotheses with their lawyers Eric Moutet and Pierre-François Rousseau.
