Home » Business » Auchan closes after 30 years: employees in tears, customers applaud

Auchan closes after 30 years: employees in tears, customers applaud

About 180 employees in tears, the applause of customers. Thus – yesterday afternoon – the shutters of the Auchan hypermarket in Palermo in the Conca D’oro shopping center were lowered. The closure came after 30 years: once upon a time, in fact, Città Mercato in via Ugo la Malfa, then Auchan arrived with the workers who had moved to the new premises since 2013.

“From tomorrow, 7 September, Pianeta Cospea, a company wholly owned by Pac 2000, will become the owner of the hypermarket but with a reduced surface area: 6,100 square meters against the current 9,300 – reads a note -. Negotiations with trade unions it is still in progress but the company has already called the workers who will be transferred to Pianeta Cospea: about 120 out of 172. So 52 workers at the moment will remain employed by Margherita Distribuzione and on layoffs “.

“Uiltucs – explain from the union – at the negotiating table asked for certain and objective criteria in the choice of workers to be transferred and a greater commitment on the part of Pianeta Cospea to integrate the number of workers to be hired. It was asked to consider for the ‘staff of the residual surfaces (3,200 square meters) the workers not hired by Pianeta Cospea “. And precisely on those 3,200 square meters there are negotiations underway: we are talking about large groups at national and international level.

The secretary general of Uiltucs Sicilia, Marianna Flauto, asks Pianeta Cospea “for an additional effort because 120 workers on 6,200 square meters are few. If a solution was found in this sense, the residual workers could be guaranteed in the residual areas whose license remains in charge to Margherita Distribuzione which would be sold to the successors through a procedure for the sale of a business unit that would guarantee the passage of workers not hired by Pianeta Cospea but a party could be interested in a procedure that provides for voluntary and incentivized exodus and early retirement. All solutions that Margherita Distribuzione did not implement in the time that would have been necessary at the moment “.

“More time was needed to deal with this situation, now we expect that we can continue with the joint examination and find a shared solution – continues Flauto -. Uiltucs does not believe that a relocation path to other Conad associates can be a solution. gives no guarantee to workers both from a contractual and logistical point of view, but keeping workers bound to the license that remains with Margherita Distribuzione would be a guarantee for the workers. Uiltucs asks for the continuation of the table as of tomorrow. In the absence of a shared solution we do not exclude union initiatives. A path must be defined that guarantees all levels of employment “.

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