Alstom: unions worried about non-compliance with European framework agreement on the anticipation of change

Restructuring.  On March 22nd, the French group Alstom presented a restructuring program for its transport unit, providing for 1,380 job cuts in Germany, Spain and Italy.  “This program is supposed to answer the decline in these countries’ market and safeguard the competitiveness of the sector’s industrial basis” the management explained.  The restructuring’s details were presented a few weeks earlier to the select committee of the company’s European Group Council.  A pill unions are having a hard time swallowing a few days after the management and the European Metalworkers’ Federation (EMF) signed, on February 24^th, a European agreement on the anticipation of change in the group (see our dispatch No.  110139).  “The decline in public orders in the transport division is no secret” explained Isabelle Barthès, corporate policy advisor at the EMF.  “However, we’re sad to observe that, while we were negotiating this agreement, the company was preparing its adjustment program.  It’s not the spirit of the agreement.”