Posted on Jul 30, 2021, 12:06 PMUpdated on Jul 30, 2021, 12:07 PM
The last electro-insulating protective gloves left the production lines on Monday at the Honeywell site in Saint-Forgeot, near Autun (Saône-et-Loire). Since the announcement of the closure of the site by the American group at the end of January, the 45 employees had prepared for this twilight.
Honeywell had justified this decision by “a significant drop in customer demand for its production of safety gloves”. Economic difficulties disputed by employee representatives, denouncing a desire to relocate abroad, as the group had done on its Breton site for the manufacture of protective masks in 2018.
Recovery hopes showered
While for a while they hoped for a buyout of the site by a buyer, the employees saw their hopes dashed at the end of May. Honeywell announced that it had rejected offers to take over the plant, although at least two files had been presented to it.
In a statement, the prefect of Saône-et-Loire, Julien Charles, then denounced a decision taken “without real dialogue with the promoters of takeover projects and without any real desire to make them evolve, which questions his real will, from the start of the procedure, to pass the industrial relay to other investors ”. Silent since, the group would however still be in discussion with one of its competitors.
The end of a chapter opened in 1958
For their part, none of the employees accepted internal reclassification offers on other French sites. The shutdown of the plant marks the end of a chapter opened in 1958 in Saint-Forgeot, with the installation of the producer of safety clothing Sofraf. Following the changes of owners, the site joined the American conglomerate in 2010. Its closure is a blow to a basin already affected by deindustrialisation.
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