The employees of the Aveyronnaise Metallurgy Company (SAM), meeting in a general meeting on Wednesday, target the automotive group as a co-employer, while the legal representatives and the Chinese group Jinjiang, owner since 2017, will also be attacked.
"Renault made a proposal for a supra-legal bonus which did not suit us, we made a counter-proposal to which Renault responded in the negative on Tuesday", explains to AFP David Gistau, CGT delegate.
Renault, specifies the lawyer of the CSE of the SAM and the employees Renaud Frechin, "is the only customer of the SAM, it acted as an employer, Renault paid the invoices of the company including wages, rents, energy bill, when the company could no longer pay. It's an employer who does that, not a customer".
According to the lawyer, the car manufacturer is "co-employer" and as "single principal, the Sam is under its economic dependence".
While the employees have occupied the factory for 94 days, the liquidation of which has been pronounced, "281 employees will attack individually (Renault), but the case will be pleaded collectively", indicates the trade unionist.
"There is legal time, but it does not come in opposition to the protection of our working tool", underlines the union official.
According to him, "the files will be filed within three weeks", before the Prud'hommes court in Rodez.
To defend them, they joined forces behind the lawyer Jean-Marc Denjean, who had represented the employees dismissed in 2009 by Molex, an American automotive connector company, based near Toulouse.
"The fight of the SAMs could not be more legitimate at a time when it is a question of reindustrialization, when we denounced the deindustrialization at the end of the 2010s alongside the Molex", declared Me Denjean to AFP.
Taken over in 2017 by the Chinese group Jinjiang, SAM, located on the heights of Decazeville, had been placed in receivership in December 2019.
Its fate was definitively sealed on November 26 when the Toulouse commercial court declared the cessation of its activity after Renault's refusal to support the only takeover project.
Since then, about half of the employees take turns day and night to occupy the site.
"We have proof that Renault pretended to be interested in the situation of the Sam, but they duplicated the molds of the factory, to manufacture parts abroad, in Romania and Spain", assures Me Frechin.
© 2022 AFP