© Domingos Oliveira / RTL
Trade unions are furious after the management of DuPont Teijin Films presented them with a fait accompli on Thursday. The company has already initiated a social plan that will have to be completed in a fortnight.
After the shock announcement by Dupont Teijin Films (DTF) on Monday to close two production lines at its Luxembourg site in Contern, trade unions and management sat down together on Thursday afternoon.
The focus of the discussion was to be on the economic factors that contributed to the double closure and the loss of 160 jobs, as well as viable measures to minimise the large number of affected employees. At least that's what the Luxembourg Confederation of Christian Trade Unions (LCGB) and the Independent Luxembourg Trade Union Confederation (OGBL) thought when they sat down to talk. But they were quickly disillusioned.
DTF's management simply announced a redundancy plan. The company "let employees and trade unions to believe that we were going to start with a plan to maintain jobs," as trade union representatives had demanded on Monday. Instead, the management "initiated a redundancy plan on Tuesday by sending the letter to the National Employment Agency (ADEM), without giving us any warning! This is unacceptable," says Alain Rolling, central secretary of the OGBL.
"We do not accept this social plan. Our goal remains the implementation of a job retention plan to avoid any redundancies. There are families involved! In a time of crisis and inflation, they want to put 160 people out of work. We condemn this kind of conduct," Rolling stresses.
The DuPont site in Contern has more than 1,000 employees, including 270 at Dupont Teijin Films (DTF), a production plant acquired by Celanese Corporation in October 2021. / © Domingos Oliveira / RTL
The goal of the trade unions is to reduce the number of threatened jobs as much as possible and to provide the best possible social support for those concerned by means of labour loans, early retirement, or professional reorientation.
The social plan, according to DTF's lawyers, should be completed within two weeks. According to Marc Kirchen, LCGB union assistant and shocked by the scale of the job cuts, DTF (the former DuPont de Nemours plant bought by Celanse Corporation in October 2021) is trying to handle it "the American way." However, "it doesn't work like that in Luxembourg! We have social dialogue," Kirchen stresses. And through this model "we always find solutions," Rolling adds.
