INTERVIEW
As we revealed on Thursday, General Electric would be ready to reduce its plan for post cuts in Belfort. While a demonstration is organized this afternoon in support of the employees of the Belfort factory, the Socialist President of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, Marie-Guite Dufay, reacted to the microphone of Europe 1. She greets the advance of the Intersyndicale and finds the compromise found "interesting".
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"The inter-union has carried a very strong industrial vision," she said at the microphone of Europe 1. "She obtained commitments for Belfort to be the center of excellence for a certain type of turbine and that a production line that was to go to Hungary does not go away, the compromise saves 300 jobs, so it seems interesting to me because when the activity resumes, there will be a guarantee of maintaining sufficient skills so that the production can continue to be in Belfort ".
"It's better, but it's another fight that starts"
The compromise, which consists of eliminating only 500 positions instead of 800 in exchange for fairly sharp cuts in benefits, is acceptable to Marie-Guite Dufay. "If we do not find a compromise, with the effects of the social plan, it will not be in Belfort that the turbines will be built when the market will resume," she says at the microphone of Europe 1.
"From the moment we had a social plan that had 800 jobs, actually, it's better, but it's another fight that begins," she warned nonetheless. "There is the possibility of attracting investors and jobs and building what this Region has always been keen to build: a professional security so that employees who will be impacted by job losses do not lose Purchasing power: For them to be trained and at the end of this training, they find a job ", says it, recalling that these issues of professional security had already been addressed during the economic crisis of 2008 "So we have to innovate again in this way," concludes the President of the Region.
See now if General Electric delivers on its promises. In 2014, the US company committed to create a thousand jobs after buying the turbines Alstom, but almost none had been created.