There are 850 employees who are very likely to be unemployed. Thursday, the factory Ford Blanquefort, in Gironde, announced to have rejected the offer of recovery made by Punch Powerglide, yet supported by the French government. Instead, the car manufacturer's management has "presented a complete social plan" for a stoppage of production of the site at the end of August 2019.
"The employees made sacrifices". "Their decision is incomprehensible," reacted Veronique Ferreira, Mayor of Blanquefort, in the morning of Europe 1 Saturday. "On this issue, it has been years since all those concerned support the maintenance of this factory Ford.The attitude of the Ford leadership leads to a certain unanimity against it. The city council emphasized the joint work done by the buyer, the employees and the public authorities. "We had worked together so that there was the best possible conditions of recovery.Punch worked his business plan, reworked it several times, made progress.The employees made sacrifices during the signing of agreement in principle, and the public authorities participated in a number of negotiations or mediations. "
The "false argument" of the direction of Ford. This agreement in principle provided that the employees act "three years of salary freeze, the loss of three days of RTT at the time of resumption of production and a modulation agreement for three years," said Véronique Ferreira. "For their part, Punch had put in the agreement that there would be no economic dismissal in the five and no return to shareholders" over the same period. The argument brandished by Ford to justify its decision to refuse the offer of recovery is "false", according to the mayor. "They say that it is better to apply a PSE (employment protection plan) right away than to make the recovery because it is safer for the employees because they are not sure that, maybe to be, in two or three years there will be no unemployment. "
Emmanuel Macron himself reacted Friday to the announcement of Ford and judged the attitude of the company "unacceptable". "I do not believe in cynicism," he said. "The gesture made by the company is hostile."