Negotiations between MasOrange and the unions to define the conditions of the Employment Regulation File (ERE), imposed by the company and which will concern a maximum of 795 people, will begin this Tuesday, according to what union sources indicated to Europa Press.
The telecommunications company, resulting from the 50/50 merger of Orange and MásMóvil in Spain, announced on September 3, in an internal press release, the implementation of a voluntary ERE, for a maximum of 9.5% of the workforce, with nearly 8,400 workers. Of these, around 6,000 came from Orange and the other 1,800 from MásMovil.
The telecommunications company’s goal is for the dialogue with social agents to be concluded by mid-October, the date on which the process of joining the voluntary departure plan will begin, according to company sources. With this in mind, and while waiting for the conditions of the ERE, MasOrange’s management has informed its employees of its desire to “work honestly and transparently to be able to reach agreements that are satisfactory for all.”
The company justifies its decision in the labor regulation file by “certain organizational duplications” after the integration of Orange and MásMóvil personnel. The company had stressed at the time that the voluntary nature would be the preferred criterion for joining the ERE, which would affect the main companies of the group (Orange Spain, Orange España Comunicaciones Fijas, Xfera Móviles, Lorca Telecom Bidco, Euskaltel and R Cable y Telecable), and that it will be accompanied by a “good relocation plan”. However, stores, call centers and certain functional areas of the company will be excluded from the process.
Unions reject ERE
The unions CCOO, UGT, USO, ELA and CGT have signed a joint statement in which they oppose the company’s “forced” ERE, which they describe as “unjustified”. “This represents the destruction of hundreds of jobs in a company that is progressing and with good economic and financial results and contradicts the promises made by management not to carry out collective layoffs,” they denounce.
For the trade union organisations that signed the manifesto, the essential element of any agreement scenario is based on “complete and absolute voluntariness, without subterfuge or substitutes”. “This is a red line for the five unions, which is why we are demonstrating our opposition to a predominantly voluntary ERE, or what amounts to the same thing, to a programme of job destruction where management accepts a certain voluntariness and which includes forced layoffs or early retirements. mandatory”, they warn.
Furthermore, for the “true volunteering” scenario to work, the unions warn that compensation conditions equivalent to, or even superior to, those unanimously agreed by all parties during the ERE Orange Spain 2021 will be necessary.
The unions also anticipate in this manifesto their intention to undertake the necessary legal and union measures to defend all jobs at MasOrange, as well as the labor rights of workers.
“We are once again calling on the social responsibility of management to rethink its plan to lay off 795 people at MasOrange and to open a genuine framework for negotiation and social dialogue in each of the companies concerned that avoids these layoffs,” they concluded.
