“Since the announcement, we are still in shock. It took us nine days to start talking about it outside.”, justifies Murielle Tassaert, 43 years old, logistics coordinator and secretary of the social and economic committee (CSE) of Pullflex, in Saint-Martin-le-Beau (Indre-et-Loire). She remembers the scene a thousand times, both brutal and sanitized.
On June 10, the European general manager of this manufacturer of trims for the automobile industry, his human resources director and the plant manager summoned the representatives of the fifty-six employees. “They asked us to sit down and launched a well-crafted slideshow on the history of the company, its product range, the consequences of Covid-19, the war in Ukraine, the cost of energy… Then the last two slides presented a “transfer of activity” and a “planning of upcoming meetings”. We all looked at each other. At no time did they say the word “closure”, as if they were not taking responsibility. »
All the employees were finally told that their factory was going to stop producing by the end of the year, due to lack of profitability. This small subcontractor of Renault and Stellantis, located 20 kilometers from Tours, has been manufacturing the trim foams since 1968 which, hidden under felt, cover the passenger compartment.
A similar fate
There were still 280 employees twenty years ago, before orders gradually fell apart. What remains of the production – around ten million euros of annual turnover – will be relocated to Eure-et-Loire, Slovakia and Portugal, where Howa, the Japanese parent company, is present.
“Here, we’re all pretty much on minimum wage. We never asked for anything so as not to cause harm to successive buyers, and this is the result”summarizes Mme Tassaert. Here, the RN won 33.50% of the votes in the last European elections, a little more than the national average (31.4%). Candidate for re-election, Daniel Labaronne (Renaissance, Indre-et-Loire), went to speak to the workers.
He says he called Bercy and wants to act so that the PSE is generous. Maxime Maintier, his LR rival, rails against these “car manufacturers who are posting excellent results while turning their backs on French workers”. He demands “a social right, which will be able to fight against social dumping and the excesses of free trade”. The employees refused a meeting with the Reconquest! candidate.
In Diors, in Indre, the 180 workers at Impériales Wheels, the last French manufacturer of aluminum rims, are preparing to experience a similar fate. Management declared insolvency to the commercial court on February 22, 2024… the fourth time in ten years. A new hearing is scheduled for Thursday, June 20, but no takeover offer has been submitted, which makes the placement in compulsory liquidation inevitable.
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