France's Atofina to cut 460 jobs over next 4 yrs - unions

24 January 2002 18:56  [Source: ICIS news]

PARIS (CNI)--Atofina is to eliminate 460 jobs over the next four years, according to trades unions who received a working paper from the French chemicals company outlining proposals to improve competitiveness. The proposals were circulated prior to negotiations scheduled to take place with the unions at the end of February.

According to the trade unions, Atofina is planning to abolish 302 positions among the 1799-strong workforce at its Carling site and 58 out of 950 at Gonfreville. The unions did not give specific details of the remaining reductions.

Atofina said Thursday that French legislation prohibited it from commenting on the contents of the document ahead of union negotiations.

However, a spokeswoman told CNI that the job cuts were not redundancies but relocations.

Plans for the reorganisation of Atofina's chemicals business would improve competitiveness, according to company spokesman Gilles Galinier.

Trades unions are worried that job cuts may jeopardise safety, particularly after the fatal explosion last year at the Toulouse, southwest France plant of Atofina's fertiliser subsidiary Grande Paroisse.

Galinier commented that controls on safety would be strongly reinforced and would not be affected by the job cuts.

The proposals have coincided with separate plans to eliminate 38 positions at Atofina's Fos and Epierre phosphorous derivatives plants. Atofina is to relocate the jobs elsewhere within its chemicals empire following the sale of its phosphorous derivatives business to Germany's Thermphos.

(Joanna Kesteven in London contributed to this article.)

By: Doris Leblond
+44 20 8652 3214

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