"Unions helped prevent the worst": How Lubrizol abandoned its layoff plan

In these times of increasing announcements of social plans and company liquidations , the news is encouraging. The management of Lubrizol France announced on Monday, May 5, that it was abandoning its social plan, which included 169 job cuts , a bloodbath later reduced to 106 positions after a major mobilization of employees and their unions, as well as local elected officials.

"Lubrizol has announced to the social and economic committees (CSE) and to the employees of the Rouen and Le Havre sites that it is ending the ongoing consultation procedure relating to the reorganization of their activities," wrote the company in a press release, which produces additives for gasoline, diesel as well as engine and industrial lubricants at three sites in Rouen, Oudalle (Seine-Maritime) and Mourenx (Pyrénées-Atlantiques).

In February, Lubrizol, whose name has been ringing in the ears of the general public since the spectacular fire that broke out in September 2019 on its Seveso high threshold site in Rouen/Petit-Quevilly, had in fact intended to relocate 10% of the activity of the Rouen site to Le Havre (3%) and to a site outside Europe (7%).

"Since the announcement of this project, the international context of supply chains has evolved considerably in an uncertain macroeconomic environment and with increased pressures on costs and availability of raw materials, which significantly impacts the entire chemical industry and its customers," the press release details.

According to Lubrizol, the initial restructuring project was decided "in a context of need to safeguard its competitiveness, following the drop in demand on the European additives market which had led to a drop in production volumes of Lubrizol France of more than 30% as well as significant overcapacity of production" in Rouen and Le Havre.

The company, which employs 700 people, now says it wants to "secure supply" to customers and work "to regain a productive working environment."

"While this is good news, it is mixed," Francis Malandain, CFE-CGC delegate, told AFP. "Management has refused to commit to the absence of a PSE (job protection plan, editor's note) for the next three years." "We don't know the future and employees remain worried. Some had already left Lubrizol in their minds," the union official explained.

According to the Communist parliamentarians of Seine-Maritime Édouard Bénard, Céline Brulin and Jean-Paul Lecoq, "according to the statement of the management of Lubrizol France, this turnaround is to be credited to the dialogue conducted with employee representatives, which led to the emergence of alternative solutions to preserve jobs and not to that of the Government, which allegedly did not exert any pressure on the industrial group. The demands of the employee unions, and the alternatives they worked on to allow the preservation of jobs in France, therefore made it possible to avoid the worst."