A Total tank (illustration). – Frank Perry AFP / Archives
Hutchinson, a subsidiary of the Total group, wants to cut 800 to 1,000 jobs in France via a voluntary departure plan “taking into account the current situation in the automobile and aeronautics industries,” we learned on Friday from management and CFDT who denounced “a disguised social plan”. In France, the group has around 8,500 permanent employees, said a union official.
“There will be no layoffs,” said the management of this Total subsidiary, which specializes in the processing of elastomers, in particular for sealing bodies. In total, Hutchinson wants to cut “nearly 3,000 jobs” worldwide, according to the CFDT. “In France, 1,000 people could be affected by voluntary departures,” added the union in a press release.
CFDT wants expertise on the situation of the company
The CFDT estimates that “the loss of jobs in the automotive and aeronautical activities could be around 20% of the total workforce” of Hutchinson. The union demands “urgently the carrying out of an expert opinion in order to establish an inventory of the real situation of employment”. This expertise “must be accompanied by a clear visibility of Hutchinson’s industrial strategy”, demands the CFDT, which warns that it “will not sign a blank check in a social plan disguised through collective breakups”.
“Management blackens the picture until 2023, or even 2025. We cannot negotiate job cuts without having a vision of the group’s future and the industrial strategy to come” and “we want to keep our industrial tool in France, ”said Farid Meslati, CFDT coordinator. With a total of 40,000 employees in 25 countries, Hutchinson achieved turnover of 4.3 billion euros in 2019, according to its website.
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