Amiens (AFP)
Six years after the closure of its tire factory in Amiens-Nord, which led to the dismissal of 1,143 people, Goodyear was sentenced on Thursday for unfair dismissal, a judgment which gives back their "dignity" to employees tried by years of procedures.
The total amount that the American group will have to pay in damages for 832 of the employees involved in the proceedings was not immediately known to the employees' lawyer, Me Fiodor Rilov. But the decision of the industrial tribunal of Amiens is provisionally binding, according to him.
At the so-called January 28 tiebreaker hearing, which around 550 people attended, Me Rilov insisted on the global operating profits, at the time, of the Goodyear group, amounting to 1.7 billion dollars.
He considered this affair as "emblematic of the refusal of workers to let themselves be crushed during the dismantling of their work tool while their employer makes colossal profits".
Specialized in the manufacture of agricultural tires, the Goodyear site in Amiens-Nord had closed in January 2014, after a standoff of more than six years between staff and management.
The factory was "in deficit", "late" and the group then suffered from a "high debt" of 5.2 billion dollars, had argued at this same hearing the lawyer for management, Me Joël Grangé, to justify the closure decision. While ensuring that management had "tried everything" to "avoid this drama".
The court, which was ruling in a tiebreaker, gave another reading of this social catastrophe, considering that the dismissals had no "valid economic reason".
- "Huge victory" -
"It is a huge victory, especially in the current period of avalanche of social plans. It is emblematic of the usefulness of the fight not to be confronted by multinationals with billions of euros in reserve. C "is an extremely significant judgment: one cannot dismiss to make more profits, it is not legal", thundered Me Rilov before the court of Amiens, where some former employees had found themselves.
Among them, Evelyne Becker, ex-CGT delegate: this "victory will not give work to those who have stayed on the side of the road and will not restore social and human tragedies. I am thinking in particular of families bereaved because of of this industrial disaster, "she said. But it "gives us back our dignity in the face of a multinational that has despised and humiliated us. Above all, it will allow us to move on to something else".
An allusion to the long social and judicial arm wrestling that opposed the two parties since the announcement in 2007 of the reorganization of the two sites of Amiens-nord and Amiens-sud in view of a unique industrial complex.
This climate of intense tension had notably led to a spectacular episode when the director of human resources and that of production had been retained for around thirty hours in the occupied factory. Seven employees were definitively sentenced to suspended prison in 2018.
A few steps from the employees, a spokesperson for the company said that Goodyear "obviously took note" of this decision, while recalling that "the closure of the site was necessary to safeguard the competitiveness of the company" and that a "very important support system" had been put in place for former employees. "Goodyear will study the judgment before deciding on a possible appeal," he also said.
© 2020 AFP