Duro Felguera group a mass dismissal employment regulation file (ERE) It was forwarded to the workers’ representative yesterday for negotiation. The file will affect a group of workers from four of the company’s unspecified companies: the group’s parent company (Duro Felguera, SA) and its subsidiaries DFOM, Mompresa and Felguera IHI. The collective dismissal will be implemented exclusively in business centers in Asturias. These four companies have 607 workers in the region. The group’s total workforce reached 1,067 workers at the end of last year.
Other subsidiaries, such as DF Oil & Gas, which do not currently have appointed employees, will be excluded from this dismissal measure; Duro Felguera Calderería Pesada (managing the Gijón capital goods production workshop), Madrid technology company Epicom and new company DF Green Tech for the energy transition.
The company informed the workforce representative that this is a necessary and important measure to ensure the viability, profitability and future competitiveness of the group, given that the size of the workforce is much higher than the business volume. The company has expressed its willingness to reach an agreement and that both the number of workers laid off and the economic conditions for their departure will be subject to negotiation. The company told them it hoped to reach a “positive deal”.
Rescued last year by a contribution of 120m euros by the central government, a contribution of 6m euros by the Principality and an agreement to refinance and restructure the debt of creditor banks, Duro Felguera has repeatedly applied for temporary regulation employment filings between April 15th. , 2020 and March this year to reduce labor costs and adjust the size of the effective workforce to the current workload. He hadn’t taken any new measures since, and his payroll was running out of cash.
In recent years, as a result of the serious ups and downs experienced by the society due to covid and war since 2020 and the chain of economic crises that followed, there has been an important voluntarily quitting job of the employees. In the last four years (between 2018 for the last official data available and the end of 2021), the workforce has decreased by 787 (42%): from 1,850 to 1,067 employees.
Despite this, the company thinks that if the estimate is between 300 and 500 million, its current structure will be enough to cover a turnover of between 800 and 1,000 million.
The mass layoff announcement takes place six months after the last interim arrangement expires as the company attempts to complete the entry of one or more investors to strengthen its ownership structure (without reference shareholders) and capital base. Reduced cash can make the company more attractive.
It is envisaged that the negotiating table, which will be established in a maximum of fifteen days, will consist of representatives of CC OO and CSI on behalf of the parent company with 296 employees in Asturias; Representatives of UGT and CSI by DFOM (182 employees) and DF Mompresa (122) and Felguera IHI (7 employees). These last two companies do not have a works council, so they must either elect their own representatives, delegate to the unions, or delegate their representation to negotiators on the parent company and DF Mompresa’s committees.
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Carlos Elías Barros (CC OO), head of the works council of the parent company (Duro Felguera, SA), pointed out that the group “has had years of mismanagement. There is a lack of workload and new projects. And while many executives are being hired, we are told there are too many people” . Staff left some departments and today the workforce is very unbalanced because some positions are lacking,” he said. Juan Antonio Alfaro (CSI), chairman of the Duro Felguera Operations and Assembly (DFOM) committee, expressed his surprise: This subsidiary “has a job and we don’t understand why it involved us. ERE.” Sources from the principality pointed out that “our least favorite option for securing the future of the company is employment arrangements.” “Our preferred options are to increase the order book, enter new lines of business, or even enter an industrial-grade reference shareholder.” However, these sources noted that “the Asturian Government remains committed to supporting the survival of the company.” Australian group Elementos Ltd. has signed a contract with Duro to operate the tin processing plant in Oropesa (Andalusia) for its subsidiary Minas de Estaño de España (MESPA).