In difficulty since the loss of a major contract with the incumbent telecom operator, Orange’s subcontractor, Scopelec, is preparing a social plan which could lead to the redundancy of 800 people, the company announced on Thursday 21 April, confirming an information of Figaro.
“The management announced the plan to bring together the social partners in the coming days to prepare the implementation of a PSE [plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi] which would affect 800 jobs” out of 3,600, said a spokesperson for the company – the leading cooperative in France by number of employees. A demonstration of Scopelec employees is to be held Thursday at Place de la Bastille in Paris.
The company was providing fiber optic installation and copper network maintenance for Orange, under a contract that expired at the end of March, and which represented 40% of its estimated turnover at 475 million euros in 2021.
The subcontractor, who was notified in mid-November of the loss of this contract, believes that he had no warning signs from Orange about the loss of business volume, and did not have the time to prepare for it.
Avoid “one of the heaviest social plans”
Since November when 1,800 threatened jobs were mentioned, “700 people have either been reclassified internally, or left for other companies that have won contracts, or left the telecoms field itself”continued the spokesperson for Scopelec.
The company’s associate employees published an open letter in several newspapers on Thursday to the presidential candidates, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, as well as to the candidates in the legislative elections, calling on them to act to avoid “one of the heaviest social plans that France has known for months”.
The company, which has been in the backup procedure for a month, requests that Orange“really accompanies in [sa] social restructuring” and finances part of the PSE, and that the State shareholder “plays the role of impartial arbiter”.
She intends to appeal the decision rendered on Friday April 15 by the judge in chambers of the Paris Commercial Court, who had dismissed her request for an extension of the contract with Orange, and “will also assign Orange on the merits because the termination of the commercial contracts does not seem to us to have respected the rules of commercial law”she explained.