The Nissan workforce in Catalonia has initiated mobilizations after the announcement of layoffs at the Prat de Llobregat and Zona Franca plants, in addition to the planned impact on the headquarters of Nissan Motor España in Gran Via. The works council rejects the negotiation proposed so far and has sent all documentation to the legal services pending mediation.
The point of contention is the scale of the cutback. While the company presents it as a reduction in personnel, the workers' representation maintains that the adjustment is equivalent to the closure of operations in Catalonia. In the Prat spare parts center, more than a hundred employees are affected, and only 12 positions would remain.
The committee maintains that the cutback is equivalent to a closure in Catalonia
Vanessa Almecija, president of the works council, explained that the workforce had already received news about a restructuring plan. "We had already received information about a re-Nissan plan to reduce personnel. It had been announced that there would be layoffs throughout Europe, but we did not expect this impact as it has been," she stated.
"For us, it is not a collective dismissal, it is a closure in Catalonia" - Vanessa Almecija, president of the works council
The broadest impact is concentrated in Prat de Llobregat. There, the spare parts center would lose more than a hundred workers, and only 12 employees would remain in the facility, a figure that the committee uses to argue that it is not a limited adjustment.
There will also be affected positions at the headquarters of Nissan Motor España in Gran Via. The workforce already carried out an action in front of the Consulate of Japan and plans to repeat the mobilization next Wednesday the 27th, when the committee will go to support the workers of that office to raise awareness of the conflict.
The workforce links the layoffs to instability that repeats every four or five years
Five years ago, a plant in the Zona Franca already closed, and that process ended with reindustrialization. Now, the committee insists that its priority is not to open that scenario, but to prevent job losses and maintain industrial activity in Catalonia.
Almecija framed that position within the impact the announcement has on families. The president of the committee maintained that 211 families could lose their jobs and added that the situation comes after several episodes of instability in the company.
"The families are going through the process with great anguish, because it's not the first time it has happened. Every 4 or 5 years we experience this instability. It could be 211 families who will be left on the street" - Vanessa Almecija, president of the works council
For now, the committee does not consider the negotiation to have started. The workers' representation considers both the methods and the transmission of information by the company to be incorrect, so it has sent all the documentation to the legal services and is awaiting the meeting with mediation.
Next Wednesday the 27th, after that mediation meeting, the committee will go to the Gran Via headquarters to support the affected workers, after the protest they already held days before at the Consulate of Japan.