In front of the SAM, the steelworkers castigate the “crumbs” launched by Renault and the State


The entrance to the site of the Aveyronnaise Metallurgy Company (SAM), in Viviez in Aveyron, on December 31, 2021 (AFP/Archives/Valentine CHAPUIS)

More than a thousand people took part in a rally in Viviez on Saturday in front of SAM, an Aveyron subcontractor of Renault liquidated in November, to support ex-employees who are fighting for an alternative project on the site of this foundry. .

“Today, 61st day of occupation”, could one read on a large black sign pasted at the entrance. A little further on, photos of Emmanuel Macron and Bruno Le Maire were accompanied respectively by the words “liar” and “accomplice”. And the boss of Renault named “guilty”.

“The responses provided by the state and Renault do not meet our expectations. We are still very far from the mark,” David Gistau, CGT delegate, told AFP.

On the specific support measures allowing employees to retire earlier, he accuses the State of providing “no clear answer”. As for the supra-legal bonuses offered by Renault, of the order of 25,000 euros gross per employee, “these are crumbs compared to the damage suffered”, he says.

“But we don’t want to let ourselves be confined by questions of money and our primary objective is to obtain an alternative industrial project to revive the activity of the foundry”, he says. “Our fight is also of general interest for the entire foundry industry in France, which is threatened today,” adds the trade unionist.

David Gistau, CGT delegate, during a gathering of SAM employees in Viviez, December 1, 2021 (AFP/Archives/Valentine CHAPUIS)

Among the participants in the rally, representatives of many unions from different regions of France, as well as inhabitants of the Decazeville basin and local elected officials.

Brandishing a coal stone, Mr. Gistau recalled that “this territory (the Decazeville basin, editor’s note) enabled the country to rebuild itself after the war” with in particular coal mining and the manufacture of steel and cast iron having used to power thousands of kilometers of rails.

Of the 333 employees of the factory, 315 have received their dismissal letter, explained the trade unionist to AFP, specifying that the 18 others, staff representatives, “are still waiting to meet the labor inspectorate”.

Taken over in 2017 by the Chinese group Jinjiang, the Aveyronnaise Metallurgy Company (SAM), located on the heights of Decazeville, had been placed in receivership in December 2019.

Its fate was definitively sealed on November 26 when the Toulouse commercial court declared the cessation of its activity and its liquidation after Renault’s refusal to support the only takeover project. Since then, about half of the employees take turns day and night to occupy the site.

Faced with this situation, the agents of the liquidated company are protesting the fact that the ovens have not been extinguished. “They burn thousands of m² of gas for nothing and there is some for around 250,000 euros per month,” Guillaume Foucault, their spokesperson, told AFP.

He points to the “environmental cost” of this decision taken by the employees occupying the factory, as well as the risk for the ovens of being “screwed up if EDF and GDF suddenly cut off the supply”.

But for Ghislaine Gistau, another CGT representative of the employees, the agents “have nothing to do with ecology, what they want is for the ovens to be emptied properly so that they can resell them afterwards”.

© 2022 AFP

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