How many days can we remember accurately in a lifetime? Olivier Le Bras names three: the day of birth of each of his two children. And October 11, 2013. The former union delegate (Force Ouvrière, FO) of the Gad slaughterhouses can still establish the progress, minute by minute, of this day which led him, at 5:15 p.m. precisely, to announce to the 889 employees and their families gathered in the parking lot that the commercial court had just recorded their dismissal. “Looks will remain engraved for lifehe confides. I don’t wish anyone to experience that moment. »
The closure of this emblematic company, founded fifty years earlier in Lampaul-Guimiliau (Finistère) and housing, over 60,000 square meters, a slaughterhouse and pork cutting lines, is an earthquake. Because it comes after other social plans in the Breton agri-food industry and in the middle of a standoff over the ecotax on heavy goods vehicles. The dismay of workers and the anger of entrepreneurs and farmers then converged in the “red caps” demonstrations, at the center of media attention for several weeks.
The future of the “Gad” even marks the clumsy entry of the young Minister of the Economy Emmanuel Macron into the media space, while in 2014, on Europe 1it evokes ” women (…) for many illiterate” – the site actually had a lot of men, and a minority in great difficulty.
What remains of such a shock, ten years later? No follow-up lasts that long. “I asked for it, though. It would be very instructive to know how many remained behind.”, deplores Olivier Le Bras. The latest assessment of the prefecture, which did not respond to requests from Worldseems to date from 2017: there were still 275 registered with Pôle emploi and 43 people “in a difficult situation and without perspective”. The others being “retired or in permanent employment”.
The world contacted around thirty ex-“Gad”. Only ten of them followed up. “It’s not easy, since my journey hasn’t been great”, slips a former worker, before canceling the meeting. Colleagues who “never got over it”there are some. “Some had hyper-specialized positions. The same surgical procedure, eight hours a day, real professionals. But planning elsewhere was impossible for them”, says Mr. Le Bras. “In the workshops of the reclassification unit, they felt lost, even though until then they had real value at work”, adds Rachel Réault, 46-year-old ex-“Gad”.
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