Belfort (AFP)

The blocking of the gas activity of the sites of General Electric in Belfort and Bourogne (Territoire de Belfort), covered by a broad social plan, continued Thursday, waiting for a new meeting Friday with management, have indicated the unions in the evening.

The union must meet Friday Patrick Mafféïs, vice president of industrial operations of GE Power Europe, at 10:00 to Danjoutin, a few kilometers from Belfort, said the inter-union AFP.

"GE wishes that this meeting will allow the unblocking of the sites of Belfort and Bourogne, detrimental to both employees and the company, as well as the arrival of the representatives of staff in the framework of the formal negotiation process," said Thursday the management from GE Power.

Staff representatives will then share these discussions with employees at a general meeting scheduled on the GE Belfort site around 14:00, said a union source. They will then decide on the next move.

Thursday "all the production workshops in Belfort are busy and in Bourogne the site is inaccessible, both inputs and outputs," said CGP delegate Cyril Caritey. A general meeting in the morning in Belfort had gathered about 500 to 600 people, according to the unions.

In the afternoon, the inter-union met "a number of service managers" to "discuss the substance of (his) alternative project (social, Editor's note)".

"We understand that we can not completely reverse the steam, that the group is in a process of deep restructuring.What we put on the table is a plan of voluntary departure, plan + seniors + to 36 months that we estimate to 200 people, plus a certain number of volunteers, "detailed elected South Alexis Sesmat.

The Inter Union wants a minimum workforce of 1,500 people to be maintained, a "critical threshold", according to Mr. Sesmat, to sustain GE's gas turbine business.

It also asks for the decision centers for the 50 Hz turbines to be maintained in Belfort, in accordance with the agreement signed in 2014 between the French government and GE, at the time of the acquisition of Alstom's energy activities.

The US group, which employs some 4,300 employees in Belfort, including 1,900 in the unit that manufactures gas turbines, announced in May a restructuring plan for the removal of nearly 1,050 positions in France, including 792 in the Belfort site .

GE management in Belfort, however, expressed "willing" to reduce by 150 the number of posts deleted in this site, "subject to" formal discussions with the representative bodies of staff.

The blocking of production had started on Tuesday morning. Nearly 300 workers, according to the unions, then paralyzed the production process of a 9HA gas turbine, the most powerful in the world, to protest against the plan of management.

This movement was then extended to other gas turbine manufacturing plants in Belfort and Bourogne.

A major event to support GE employees is scheduled for Saturday, October 19th in Belfort.

© 2019 AFP