Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
On 24 January, Whirlpool, the US manufacturer of household appliances, has announced plans to close its tumble dryer factory in Amiens to transfer the production to Lodz in Poland (153 job creation recorded in the ERM Database) by June 2018. After the announcement, trade unions started to negotiate a social plan. The negotiation was highly followed by the media in the context of the French presidential elections. Between the two rounds of the election, both candidates visited the employees near their plant on the same day.
To put pressure on the management, employees went on strike on 24 April and stopped on 5 May, after the signature of the social plan. No details were given by the parties, but the agreement has been signed by the three representative of the trade unions active in the factory ( CFDT, CFTC, CFE-CGC) and is presented by the unions as a "good" social plan, with a long replacement leave and allowances higher then the legal requirements. The plant will be closed in June 2018. Until then, the production is maintained but voluntary departures and retired workers will not be replaced by workers on permanent contracts.
A total of 290 positions will be cut. Furthermore, the contract of 250 temporary workers will cease and about 60 employees working for Prima, a subcontractors implemented within the plant, will lose their position in a region affected for years by massive reorganisations and job losses. Until June 2018, the management, the unions, and the public authorities will try to find a company to take over the site or to create new activities. Two previous restructuring affecting the site of Amiens were recorded in 2008 (153 job cuts on a total of 500 employees) and in 2002 (225 job cuts on a total of 860 employees).
Eurofound (2017), Whirlpool, Offshoring/Delocalisation in France, factsheet number 90934, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/90934.