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This Wednesday, September 7, Eric (who requested anonymity) worked all morning but asked her afternoon. Motion granted. This is precisely what time of day that the site management Belfort Alstom Transport – colloquially called the “Drive” – chose to release the new chilling: the manufacture of trains and locomotives in Belfort, it’s over. Almost done.
The plant, which employs about 500 people (against 1400 to early 1990), will close its doors 2018. The current activity (engineering and production) should be gradually transferred to Reichshoffen, Alsace, where Alstom has a website (one thousand employees there produce regional trains). In the city of Lion, it no longer subsist a maintenance activity, although less prestigious and rewarding and currently works with about fifty people.
Read also chronicle Philippe Escande: P & P Escande / Alstom / farewell to the factory
“Wednesday morning, in my area, everything was normal,” Eric assures. One day a priori as another, imbued with a kind of quiet routine. “There was no rumor. “ all started at 13 pm when the director, Alain Courau, and the human resources manager summoned the unions. One after another, starting with the CGT.
Historic Market late August
Then it was the turn of employees to be together, to from 14 hours in a large room. For groups of 40 to 50 with rotation every thirty minutes. A form of line work applied to a social plan. “As soon as the info was revealed, it spread like wildfire, reports Eric. Most employees knew what was going to say before entering this room. “
the end of the” Traction “” it’s like a big shot in the face with mace, summarizes Novelin Pascal, secretary of the CGT section of the site. It is unacceptable to close a plant like that, overnight. In recent days, was so praised our merits, our expertise in the media, pushed everywhere crowing … “
In late August, Alstom won the United States a historic market 2.45 billion ($ 2.2 billion) to modernize the high-speed line linking Boston to Washington along the east Coast. Paid for rail manufacturer to supply trains – manufactured overseas … – and maintain
Read also:. TGV: Historical contract for Alstom in the United States
with the announcement in late August also established a partnership with SNCF to design the next generation of TGV, Belfort horizon seemed to clear. But first a warning shot was fired almost simultaneously, with the loss of a vital deemed contract for the site for the benefit of the company Vossloh, Germany: manufacture of 44 locomotives of maneuver and work for 144 million Akiem commissioned by the company, equally owned by SNCF and Deutsche Bank
Read also. the future of the TGV is (almost) on the rails
“All the camp did not care”
“Who, now, will manufacture the new generation of high-speed train? Pascal Novelin questions. The management speaks of Reichshoffen site, but it’s making fun of the world. It does not make a TGV as we make a buggy. It is a flagship of French industry has improved, enhanced with time since its commissioning in 1981. While our Alsatian colleagues are very good in their field, they do not have the skills or the expertise to manufacture the TGV. This can not be learned in a few months. It’s impossible. “
For about five years, the order books were struggling to fill. Despite the reassuring messages Executive Officer, “we felt that there was little desire to run the plant,” chains Eric, fatalistic. Certainly Alstom clinched contracts here and there, for example with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, “all but predicted the manufacture of locomotives on site, with technology transfer. In other words, all the camp did not care there. “
Technician Alstom Belfort last thirty years, he suspected that the future of the site was compromised. “I made long ago to the idea that it would close one day, but I did not think that the ax would fall so fast. “ Management argues that no employee will be left in the lurch, that those who wish to be reclassified to another site, ” but it’s not 55 years ago, and a few years retirement, I’ll move to the other end of France [Alstom also has a site in La Rochelle, where some 1400 employees manufacture TGV and trams] . They put me outside and over! “
filed away in the archives
With the end of” Traction “that nurtured generations of Belfort, this is not just a page is turned, the entire industrial encyclopedia in several volumes, which is about to be stored in the archives. Alstom in Belfort The saga began in 1879 when the Alsatian Society for Mechanical Engineering (SACM) opened a workshop after the 1870 war and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by the German Empire, to honor orders from French customers without having to pay customs duties.
after the first steam locomotive 100% Belfort in 1881, after the creation of a production hall for large machines in 1899, after the merger of SACM and the French company Thomson-Houston in 1928 (Alsthom birth certificate with an “h”, abolished in 1998), it is with the TGV program, developed between 1966 and 1978 that the establishment of Belfort took a different dimension and forged its reputation.
End 2015, the energy division of Alstom was bought by the American General Electric. Not the transportation industry, which suddenly was no longer backed by a large industrial group with a large fire power of capital. In 2004, the French government had rushed to the aid of the group so well in an awkward position. Successfully.
“Your business has a strategic importance for France and will be defended,” had said Emmanuel Macron, former economy minister, in May 2015 during his visit to the Belfort plant. For employees and their families, these words today have a particularly bitter taste. The unions, who were to meet in the morning of Thursday, September 8, have already announced prepare the response
Read also:. Site closure Alstom in Belfort: “brutal” for Royal, “unacceptable” for Montebourg and Macron
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