at the historic Casino headquarters in Saint-Etienne, employees are resigned

The day after the announcement of the takeover of more than 300 Casino stores by the Intermarché group, Estelle Silbermann, CFDT representative, denounced, like other employees, a “waste”.

“I am disgusted, disappointed, sad and angry”, is moved on Tuesday, December 19, at the microphone of franceinfo Estelle Silbermann, CFDT representative and Casino employee in the supply department at the head office, after the announcement of the purchase of more than 300 Casino hypermarkets and supermarkets by the Intermarché group allied with Auchan. The CFDT general secretary for commerce and services in the Loire expresses her “disgust” and denounces a “mess”.

Estelle Silbermann fears for her “colleagues from stores who will be transferred to another distributor, or not”, and for those at the head office in Saint-Étienne. She recalls that the distributor represents “entire families in an already devastated Saint-Etienne region”. “I also have a thought for my logistics colleagues who don’t know what will become of them because we don’t talk about them,” adds the trade unionist.

Estelle Silbermann does not know what to expect from the meeting scheduled for Tuesday between the inter-union and the representatives of the group’s buyers. The CFDT representative believes that “everything is played” and thus demands “more precise information”, denouncing a “vague.” “What I personally expect [de cette réunion] it’s honesty so that we can prepare as well as possible and support employees with dignity in what will happen next”she says.

At the historic Casino headquarters in Saint-Etienne, employees are resigned

A new meeting must be held from 3:30 p.m. between Casino management, the group’s future shareholders and the inter-union, at the group’s historic headquarters in Saint-Etienne. On site, employees are, for the moment, divided between concern and resignation. Many closed faces follow one another. Without these 300 stores, what to do with the Saint-Etienne headquarters and its approximately 1,800 employees? Only a little over a hundred positions could be maintained, according to several sources. Same concern for Easydis employees, who work in Casino’s 12 logistics warehouses – around 2,000 people who are not mentioned in the press release published Monday.

An employee who has worked for 19 years within the group says she is disappointed. Further on, Delphine, a six-year career at Casino, has tears in her eyes: “I’m waiting. We’ve been seeing things happen for a long time and that’s it… We were good, it was a good group. That’s something all the same.” Feeling of helplessness shared by Stéphane who has also worked at Casino for 6 years: “We are suffering and it’s sad for all the people who work here. It’s sad for the city because it’s not just the employees who will be impacted. That’s how it is. It’s the resignation.”

“Anyway, what can we do? We are waiting for the decisions that will be made, we are no longer decision-makers on anything at all. In any case, we never have been and we never will be. Not now.”

Stéphane, a Casino employee

at franceinfo

Tuesday afternoon, the inter-union will request the implementation of a job protection plan for all positions which cannot be maintained. She also demands social guarantees for the 12,000 employees of these hypermarkets and supermarkets, who will be sold to competition with Casino.