There are several ways to consider the signing, Thursday, December 9, of the agreement confirming the elimination of 750 jobs (out of 1,250) at the Bosch plant in Rodez (Aveyron). We can see a new episode in the deindustrialisation of France, the consequence of an ecological transition of the automobile costly in jobs: the restructuring plan provides for the cessation of the production of injectors for diesel engines by 2025. .
But there is also another way of looking at the situation, seeing in this episode a real desire to maintain in France, at least until 2028, a significant activity (500 jobs), in a territory little spared by unemployment, from a company which is not French and which is not obliged to do so.
“It is a sacrifice that the employees make, but it is also a huge effort that Bosch is making, underlines a person close to the management of the German equipment manufacturer. It’s just a shame that the acceptance, by almost all employees, of this bailout is less in the headlines than the announcement of the job cuts last March. “ The agreement was signed by the four representative unions of Bosch France (CFE-CGC, CFDT, SUD and CGT), after the site’s employees accepted the terms by a huge majority, Thursday, December 2, during a vote (87% for, 12% against).
A new and hypothetical market
To keep 500 people in Bosch-Rodez busy and productive, the group, which employs 7,000 people in France, has therefore scrambled to find workload. The flagship production will be a new fuel cell assembly activity for hydrogen engines in refrigerated containers. A new and hypothetical market, but in which the management of Bosch places a lot of hope and the majority of jobs to be perpetuated.
The company also made the choice – rare and notable – to re-internalize automobile productions that had been subcontracted. At least seven products (and this could go up to ten), previously outsourced, will be entrusted to the Rodez plant. Only one of them is already known: it is a steering column element (a torsion bar), which will generate around ten full-time jobs. For commercial and legal reasons, Bosch does not say much about the objects repatriated within the in-house production system, and their current manufacturers, but the group stresses that these products come from “European external suppliers”.
“There are a lot of uncertainties, but it was this deal or nothing, declares Laurent Vincent, central CFDT delegate of Bosch France. What matters is that the plant has remained a Bosch plant, even if we do not forget the 750 jobs lost. There is now a new horizon until 2028 for the 500 that are still there. All that remains is to find a job for them. ”