Tense atmosphere. At the entrance to the Nestlé Waters mineral water bottling plant in Vittel (Vosges), two hanged men and dozens of wooden crosses set the tone. “This is what would happen” in the event of dismissal, “it destroys lives,” says Patrice Bontems, a 52-year-old maintenance technician, 28 of whom work at home.
Negotiations on the social plan providing for the elimination of a quarter of the 721 jobs, which began in mid-May, were turbulent. At the end of August, the unions left the table and a strike began in Vittel and Contrexéville. Discussions then resumed, for a total of a dozen joint meetings. The last one, Monday, made it possible to reach a “consensus” after “constructive discussions carried out calmly”, underlined the management of Nestlé Waters Vosges.
The negotiated progress allows the unions to believe in their project, which assumes that 30 employees accept voluntary departure and that between 115 and 120 others take early retirement, explain Stéphane Cachet, deputy secretary of the CGT at the CSE, and Yannick Duffner, delegate CFDT. The others would be reclassified within the company.
An agreement in sight
For management, this “consensus must now be transformed into a majority agreement which will include the details of the negotiated measures” and must be signed next Monday by all parties, before being presented to the labor inspectorate. On the other hand, “it is not written in the agreement that there will be no dismissals”, specify the union representatives. “We have to hold on to everything, it doesn’t matter much, we wanted to give ourselves the maximum chance of achieving zero layoffs,” insists Yannick Duffner.
For Stéphane Cachet, there are now two “challenges”: for employees, “to be active in their positioning in the company”, and for management to “accept” these retrainings. “This can happen if everyone plays the game and agrees to leave […] We ask them to be reasonable,” insists Patrice Bontems.
The cessation of the marketing of the Vittel and Contrex brands in Germany and the suspension of two drilling operations in the Hépar water table (in Vittel) justify, among other things, this social plan.
“It suits us well”
The employees started an “indefinite strike” in August against the social plan. At the Contrexéville factory, a few kilometers from Vittel, employees are also on the strike picket. “All we want is not salaries, it’s zero layoffs. “For them to let old people like us leave, that suits us well,” says François Chevalier, 57 years old, including 34 in the factory.
After thirty-six years in the company, Thierry Py, 54, remembers that when he was recruited, “ [ils étaient] 5,000 to work in summer.” However, there have never been any layoffs. So, faced with this social plan, “we would not have given up”, he said, delighted that the employees had “made management bend”.
Management is now calling for “a resumption of activity”, while “the blocking of the site in recent weeks is already having negative repercussions” on sales volumes: “It is important that our site, in great economic difficulty, can recover to regain the trust of distributors and consumers.
This subsidiary of the Swiss food giant Nestlé said in September that it had invested more than 63 million euros over the last three years. For now, “there is a positive trend”, but the unions are waiting to see the agreement put in writing before declaring victory.