Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
The manufacturer of tobacco products Altadis, part of the British Imperial Tobacco group, has announced the closure of its manufacturing plant located in Logroño. The closure will entail the loss of all 471 jobs in the plant. Once this measure is applied, the company will have 550 employees in its last remaining plant in Spain, located in Santander.
According to the company, the plan, which was announced on 19 January 2016, aims to avoid the loss of efficiency and competitiveness recorded due to the complex situation that the Spanish tobacco market is facing. Recorded tobacco sales decreased by 45 percentage points in the last five years. The company blames the decrease on taxes and the black market. The trade union CSIF has rejected the measure. According to the union, the company is recording profits and has other plants in Europe with overproduction and workers working overtime. Negotiations with the trade unions will start in the following days. The company aims to offer early retirement plans to 180 workers. For the remaining workers, it will offer a severance pay higher than the one established by law.
Altadis had 12 manufacturing plants in Spain in 1999. Since that year, all the branches have progressively closed. These closures have resulted in a total of 6,000 jobs lost in Spain over the last 17 years.
Update 2-05-2016
Workers from Altadis have achieved a preliminary agreement on the conditions related to the closure of the company. According to it, 204 of the 466 workers will be subjected to early retirement, 152 will have the option to move to an Altadis factory in Cantabria, 32 will to the Imperial Tobacco factory in Germany, 106 to two factories in Poland and 25 to sales and central offices in Madrid. Workers who reject to participate in relocation plan will have access to severance payment. In addition, the company has contracted a relocation company that will implement a social plan aiming to help those workers who do not want to move. The plant will be closed on 31 December 2016
Update 19-05-2016
The company and the trade unions have signed an agreement on the closure of the company, foreseen on 31 December 2016. Trade unions and management have agreed to dismiss via early retirement to 141 workers and to relocate 262 workers. From the 262 workers to be relocated, 138 will go to work to Germany and Poland while the remaining will move to the plant that the company has in Cantabria (Spain). The restructuring plan will be implemented between 30 June 2016 and 31 December 2016
Eurofound (2016), Altadis, Closure in Spain, factsheet number 86201, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://apps.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/86201.
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