After three months of social conflict, the bad news finally came on Tuesday. The management of Clestra in Bas-Rhin has in fact announced to the unions that it will soon declare insolvency in court, we learned from the CGT, the majority union. The management of the Alsatian office partition company will “declare itself in cessation of payment from this Wednesday or tomorrow in court” during an extraordinary CSE, indicated Amar Ladraa, elected CGT of the CSE.
“This confirms the concern of employees”, particularly on the question of jobs, he added. Since this announcement, employees have been worried about the fact that “the procedure can go very quickly”, and fear that the company will be liquidated without it having time to find a possible buyer.
A recovery hoped for by employees
A recovery constitutes “the only way out, very slim, that we have left”, believes the trade unionist. A CGT delegation “will present itself today in Bercy, to be received and to ensure that the government finally acts to meet the situation,” the union also specifies in a press release.
Last Wednesday, management and the CGT shifted responsibility for the failure of discussions during a second round table under the aegis of the Ministry of the Economy. At the end of this round table, according to the CGT, which cited the company’s CEO, Romain Jacot, bankruptcy was “imminent”, Clestra only having “five or six days of cash”. As a reminder, Clestra was placed in receivership on August 1, 2022, due to the explosion in raw material costs, a dispute over its lease in Illkirch-Graffenstaden (Bas-Rhin) and the consequences of a cyberattack . Jestia then took over most of the activities (289 jobs out of 369) by benefiting from a loan of 4 million euros from the State and one million from the Grand-Est region.