SeaFrance workers offered new jobs
January 6, 2012
SNCF chief Guillaume Pepy has offered jobs with the French state rail group to all SeaFrance’s 880 staff, should the workers co-operative takeover bid for the ferry firm fail.
The bid is scheduled to be examined by the Paris commercial court on Monday.
However, very few jobs would be offered in the Calais region, and most of them would be likely to involve coach driving, it is believed.
SeaFrance’s main staff union, the CFDT, which is piloting the co-operative’s bid, has rejected the offer, describing it as “laughable, if the situation wasn’t so serious”.
It said previous redundancy programmes at SeaFrance, promising posts with SNCF, had led to very few staff being hired.
Pepy’s offer represents the strongest indication to date that SNCF is reluctant to make SeaFrance staff redundancy payments available to finance the co-operative bid, as suggested by the goverment this week.
The CFDT SeaFrance branch has also rejected the government scheme, saying it was incompatible with the co-op takeover bid.
Yesterday, a meeting between government ministers, SNCF and the union failed to yield any agreement on the way forward for the bid.
Following the meeting, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, who heads the Environment and Sustainable Development super-ministry and whose portfolio also extends to transport, said: “We are waiting for the co-op’s business plan.”
A spokesman for the CFDT branch said: “We are appalled. We called on President Sarkozy to convene real negotiations, and we are re-issuing this appeal in the hope it wil be heeded before Friday evening [when the bid must be formally submitted]”.
The government estimated that if two-thirds of SeaFrance’s 880 staff contributed 80% of their severance pay, enough capital would be raised to make the workers co-operative’s bid viable.
However, the CFDT branch said the co-op’s bid focused on a takeover of SeaFrance, and not taking control via its liquidation.
It wants the government to advance the €40-50 million capital required, making light of the risk that this could contravene EU regulations on state support.
Courtesy of IFW
