Illustration of a courtroom. – Camille Allain / 20 Minutes
- In January 2014, Goodyear closed its Amiens factory and laid off 832 employees.
- The industrial tribunal said the layoffs were “without valid economic reason”.
- The American tire giant has been sentenced and will have to pay damages.
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The American tire giant Goodyear was condemned on Thursday by the industrial tribunal
of Amiens, in the Somme, for the
unfair dismissal of 832 of its former employees at its Amiens-Nord plant has been learned from concordant sources. The site, closed in January 2014, then employed 1,143 people.
The conviction for “dismissal without valid economic reason” was hailed as a “huge victory” by the workers’ lawyer, Fyodor Rilov. For its part, management took “note” of this judgment and indicated “reserve the right to appeal”.
At the so-called tiebreaker hearing on January 28, which around 550 people attended, Mr. Rilov insisted on the global operating profits of the Goodyear group, which at the time amounted to 1.7 billion dollars.
“A victory that gives us back our dignity”
He considered this affair “emblematic of the workers’ refusal to let themselves be crushed during the dismantling of their work tool while their employer makes colossal profits”.
“I am happy and proud of the victory achieved today. It will not give back work to those who have stayed on the side of the road, will not restore social and human tragedies. […] But it is a victory that gives us back our dignity in the face of a multinational company that despised and humiliated us, ”said Evelyne Becker, former CGT delegate for the company, before the court where only a few employees were returned. “Above all, this victory will allow us to move on to something else.”
The total amount of damages to be paid was not immediately available. The industrial tribunal nevertheless requested a provisional execution of this judgment, according to Mr. Rilov.
Closure of the Amiens-Nord plant: Why Dunlop is doing and not Goodyear?
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