Paris (AFP)

Social showdown in sight?

SFR plans up to 1,700 voluntary departures during 2021, or 11% of its workforce, as part of a strategic plan announced Wednesday and aimed at "consolidating its position" as the second French telecoms operator behind Orange, but the unions accuse it to play on "the windfall effect of the Covid".

According to the CFDT, interviewed by AFP, "400 departures" are planned "on a voluntary basis in the shops as well as 1,300 for other functions of the company".

These departures "on an exclusive voluntary basis" will be combined with a "large recruitment plan for 1,000 young graduates over four years", as well as a strengthening of the company's learning and training policy, indicated in a press release the management of SFR.

"To achieve this, negotiations are now underway with the social partners," adds the company, a subsidiary of the Altice France group (also present in the media with BFMTV or RMC).

This third social plan since 2012 responds, according to management, to the drop in footfall in shops - it has fallen by 30% due in particular to the health crisis - and the "continuous progression" of online purchases.

SFR also invokes a market environment where digital revenues are "captured by other players" such as video streaming giants such as Netflix, prices are "still very low" and taxation "extremely heavy", while investments in networks represent between 2.5 and 3 billion euros per year.

"The objective is to operate today a necessary transformation, so as not to have to undergo it violently later", argued Grégory Rabuel, CEO of SFR, in an interview with Les Echos.

- "Social massacre in times of growth" -

Alongside this social component, SFR has set itself several strategic objectives, particularly in the fiber sector where it aims to connect "more than 90% of French households in 2025" and win "5 million new customers".

Mobile telephony side, in addition to the densification of the 4G network, SFR aims to cover "98% of cities with more than 10,000 inhabitants in 5G" on the 3.5 GHz frequency band.

It also intends "to be the market leader in terms of the number of 5G customers", without however giving any quantified objective.

And in the lucrative business segment, where it is far behind Orange, SFR is targeting "100% growth in the number of SME customers" in its offers.

Abdelkader Choukrane, central union delegate Unsa (the first union in the company), told AFP that he was in "frontal opposition" to any "social plan" that he considered "unjustified in view of the group's very good results".

SFR, which has around 15,000 employees, increased its turnover by 2.4% to 10.6 billion euros last year.

"It is a sector which unlike many others is doing very well," added Mr. Choukrane, referring to a "social massacre in a period of growth", while accusing the group of playing on "the effect of windfall of the Covid ".

Asked about the recruitments planned in parallel with the voluntary departures, Mr. Choukrane evokes "a display effect", recalling that during the last social plan in 2017, "5,000 jobs have already been cut with promises of hiring never kept".

This announcement comes in a social climate that has already deteriorated around the issue of massive teleworking.

In early February, the SFR unions had stepped up to the plate against their management, accusing them of flouting employee rights, under the pretext of a health crisis and despite government directives.

SFR management assured AFP that they had "negotiated and concluded a collective agreement with trade unions to support teleworking situations under the best possible conditions".

© 2021 AFP