On Monday, CLN Motors, owner of the MA France site in Aulnay-sous-Bois (93), attempted to enter the factory to seize the molds and instruments used to build car bodies. Faced with management emissaries, accompanied by a dozen security agents, the MA France strikers present on the picket line formed a block to prevent them from entering. The same day, after telling the other employees that they would no longer “arrive[r] to live” as reports it Humanityone of the strikers knocked over a bottle filled with petrol, before being rescued by his colleagues, who intervened before the act went any further.
This act of desperation follows several months of struggle by workers against the closure of the plant, since the decision to liquidate it. CLN Motors, an Italian company with several plants under the supervision of the automobile giant Stellantis, has decided to relocate its production to Turkey. 280 workers and 120 temporary workers at the plant have thus been notified of their dismissal, for some workers with more than twenty years of seniority, and already “reclassified” when the plant was sold to CLN Motors by the PSA group – which has since become Stellantis.
The workers are fighting to demand decent re-employment in their field of expertise. On the contrary, the company has offered jobs to meet the legal request, in other companies in positions for which the workers are not trained: ” They offered HR positions to forklift drivers ” said one of the employees on the picket line. They were also offered job offers at ” more than 300, 400 kilometers from Paris “, incompatible with their family life.
CLN seeks to break the combativeness by offering a bonus of 15,000 euros gross against the impossibility of attacking CLN and Stellantis. They hoped to buy their silence by betting on the precarious conditions of the employees and on a short deadline for the signature ” They gave a week’s delay to put some pressure on ” This proposal did not discourage a large part of the employees: out of the 280 employees, 200 did not sign this agreement. Among the signatories ” many did it reluctantly ” say the strikers. The latter continue to mobilize to contest the company’s Job Protection Plan, and obtain a new one, with a supra-legal bonus of 70,000 euros in compensation in addition to the reassignment of all employees in nearby companies, and in their field of competence.
The situation shows that the bosses are ready to do anything to maximize their profits, and have no regard for the lives of employees, considered a disposable workforce. Stellantis, the factory’s main client, and the real boss of its subcontractors, made more than 18 billion in profits in 2023, while its CEO, Carlos Tavares, received 36.5 million euros the same year.
Faced with the contempt of billionaire management and the violence of attacks against workers, MA France employees are not giving up and are continuing to fight against their dismissal. To support them and allow the fight to continue, a strike fund is still online, while the strikers are trying to keep up the pressure on management by refusing to let the means of production leave the factory.
