Vallourec will not back down: the Saint-Saulve tube mill, north of Valenciennes, will close its doors definitively at the end of the year, despite a closed-door meeting this Friday afternoon at the sub-prefecture of Valenciennes . The group’s management, the prefect, the mayors of Saint-Saulve and Aulnoye-Aymeries, the regional president and the inter-union took part in this meeting, two days after Vallourec’s announcement of cut 255 jobs in Hauts-de-France.
What will the sixth social plan look like in Saint-Saulve?
The inter-union came out more determined than ever to negotiate the social plan, the sixth for the tube mill of Saint-Saulve. Michaël Tison, CFDT delegate, put forward a condition: “We will start with the latest PSE as a basis, signed by the union coordinators, otherwise there will be no negotiation.” Employees have work until September, they had two days off to discuss their future among themselves before closing at the end of the year. “People are worthy. Monday, they will be at work. We will finish well!”
– Maxim Glorious
Yves Dusart, the mayor of Saint-Saulve, hopes that a reindustrialization project will be implemented on the land for “to recover them at the symbolic euro, that seems to me at least the first step so that we can then work with them, or even without them, since they have had to reindustrialize for years and they have not done so “. This meeting did not reduce the number of posts cut. “On the other hand, with the weight of the agglomeration and the public authorities, we can find employment as quickly as possible for these employees.”
Management wants to make the Aulnoye-Aymeries site a strategic center in Europe
What about the future of Aulnoye-Aymeries site with 800 jobs currently, of which around 100 have been cut. Vallourec management has assured that it wants to make it a strategic center for its production in Europe. “How much are they willing to invest in Aulnoye-Aymeries? asks regional president Xavier Bertrand. It would be better than declarations, hand on heart, saying that now they are interested in Aulnoye-Aymeries. We asked the question, I didn’t get the answer, only for 2022 but don’t make fun of the world, they know exactly what they want to do!”
“There were 4,000 people in Aulnoye-Aymeries. Today, there are 800 left, sighs Mayor Bernard Baudoux. Are we still going to do what I have lived for years? That is to say, experimenting with new technologies in Aulnoye-Aymeries and when they are developed, we transfer them to Brazil.” The mayor adds that he was “hit” by the interventions of the trade union representatives during the meeting. “When a 56-year-old father tells you that he has five kids, and that he doesn’t want to finish at the RSA, that he wants to work… It’s not acceptable to walk them around like we’ve been doing for years because we are on the umpteenth social level and we don’t know if there will be others behind!”
Negotiations resume Monday between management and unions
For his part, Xavier Bertrand is preparing to seize the new government and recall that more than half a billion euros of public money has already been invested by the state. The management of Vallourec did not respond to our requests, in particular at the end of the meeting in front of the sub-prefecture of Valenciennes. Negotiations resume on Monday with the unions.