Hit hard by the coronavirus crisis, the automaker Nissan confirmed on Thursday that it intended to close its Barcelona site, arousing the anger of the 3,000 employees of the factory.
“In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is truly shameful that a multinational like this has let go of us“said a purchasing employee, Jordi Carbonell, 54, referring to the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance. Faced with falling demand, the alliance decided to undergo a major restructuring. In the crowd of employees – masked – massing themselves in front of the gates, this employee has a big heart. He has spent 32 years of his life at Nissan and feels “deceived“by management for years:”no site is profitable if it doesn’t get enough production volume and here they let it die“.
Main Nissan plant in the EU
“The indignation is at its peak, we contain it but I do not know what will happen in the coming days“warns Jordi, calling on the government to”penalize as much as possible” the group. “All on the road!“shouts a protester, while a car leaves the factory to block traffic on the highway.
Nissan Zona Franca factory employs 3,000 people and according to the unions 22,000 indirect jobs depend on it. Forty years after their arrival in Barcelona (northeast of the country), the Japanese Nissan announced Thursday the closure of the factory, their main in the European Union since Brexit because they still have a production site in the United United.
The blow to the automotive industry, which accounts for 10% of Spain’s GDP, risks being overshadowed by the news of the pandemic, says union leader Pedro Ayllon, denouncing a plan “very dishonestly“in the midst of a health crisis.
“When I entered in 1986, we were still building tractors. It’s a company that has made almost everything, we’ve always been very flexible“, insists this trade unionist USOC, for whom the problems started at the time of the alliance with Renault in 1999, when Nissan became”the secondary partner in Europe“.
“Since then, we have always been entrusted with the manufacture of vehicles with a low level of production, those that often others did not want to manufacture elsewhere.“, he believes.
The plant mainly manufactures all-terrain vehicles and pickups, as well as the NV200 electric van. Its capacity is 200,000 vehicles a year, but even before the pandemic, production had been considerably reduced to less than a third.
All of the activity had been paralyzed since the beginning of May by a strike by employees who demanded an investment plan when the reduction of 20% of the workforce was already planned. Ten years ago, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, unionists had already opposed management to demand a viability plan for the factory, which then seemed doomed. After months of conflict, they had obtained the allocation of new vehicles to manufacture, while accepting a significant reduction in wages and a deterioration in their working conditions. “Workers make sacrifices in exchange for broken promises“, summarizes Ayllon.
“Domino effect”
Among the demonstrators, a couple of employees are particularly anxious: Juan Sánchez, 45, an employee at the paint shop, and his partner, Loli Maraver, assigned to the assembly.
Both are now threatened with dismissal. “A family unit finds itself on the street, without work“said Juan, thinking of their two 10-year-old daughters. The news comes at the worst time,” he insists.With the Covid-19, you can’t find a job, when there are a lot of layoffs in other companies“.
And if the authorities do not react, warns Pedro Ayllon, “it can have a domino effect on other companies who will see that closing a site in Spain is easy”.
Abyssal losses
As a result of its old expansionist policy, Nissan suffers from significant overcapacity, which leads to huge fixed costs, weighing on its profitability: it can currently produce seven million vehicles per year, two million more than its sales in 2019. C ‘ This is why the manufacturer aims to lower its fixed costs by 300 billion yen (2.5 billion euros) by the end of March 2021 and to reduce its production capacity by more than one million units by March 2023.
Nissan also announced abysmal losses on its 2019/20 fiscal year, which ended March 31, on Thursday. Its annual loss amounted to 671.2 billion yen (5.7 billion euros), unheard of since the 2008/2009 financial year, in the midst of the global financial crisis.
The manufacturer did not give results forecasts for 2020/21 for the immediate future, due to lack of visibility due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down its factories in recent months.
Even before the coronavirus crisis, Nissan was already in a bad position due to the slowdown in the global automotive market, but also because of the lack of renewal of its models, its break with its old discount price policy in the United States and of a degraded brand image.
To restore its profitability and reduce its fixed costs, the group also intends to rely largely on its alliance with the French Renault and its compatriot Mitsubishi Motors. Their union had faltered in the wake of the Ghosn affair, but now appears crucial to the survival of the three manufacturers.
Unveiled on Wednesday, the new alliance strategy plans to jointly develop and produce nearly 50% of the three manufacturers’ models by 2025, with a view to significantly reducing costs and investment expenses. Nissan will in particular become the referent of the alliance in its three preferred geographic areas: North America, China and Japan. Without, however, giving up on Europe, where it has a giant factory in Sunderland (north-east of England).
With AFP
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