The Sochaux Stellantis plant has announced the cessation of production of the 3008 and 5008 from Monday to Wednesday due to the shortage of semiconductors. The factory of a supplier in Malaysia had to close following Covid contamination.
Barely back to work and already at a standstill. The re-entry of employees in the automotive industry is disrupted by a domino effect of the global Coronavirus crisis. The auto industry is once again slowing down due to the global semiconductor shortage.
At its French plant in Onnaing (North), Toyota delayed the resumption of production from 23 August to 6 September. The Japanese group will reduce its global production by 40% in September compared to forecasts. Renault specifies to a colleague of AFP that “the continuation of the negative effects of the crisis of the components (…) could lead to a loss of production of the order of 200,000 units over the year”. In Germany, Volkswagen will again cut production for the same reasons.
Stellantis has also announced the cessation of production at its Rennes-La Janais (Ille-et-Vilaine) plant from Friday evening, for a week. Management evokes a supply problem from a factory in Malaysia, closed due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
“Currently, our lack of semiconductors is not directly linked to this global shortage, explains to our colleagues from France 3 Rennes, Nathalie Bertran, communication manager at PSA Peugeot Citroën. It is a supplier in Malaysia who has had to completely close his factory because of Covid contamination. ” This second-tier Malaysian supplier, specifies the website of our colleagues, exports electronic chips to Poland. There, a PSA subcontractor manufactures the BSI (intelligent service box, the brain of the car).
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For the same reason, Stellantis also announced the shutdown of line 2 (3008 and 5008) of the Sochaux (Doubs) plant for three days at the start of the week. Employees on line 1 (308) are not affected.
The union representatives of the historic lion brand site have once again expressed their disagreement with the decisions taken by the management of their company in reaction to this shortage and announced during the extraordinary Works Council last Thursday.
In a press release published on the same August 19, Jérôme Boussard, Secretary General of the CGT Sochaux, denounces two “aberrations”. According to the trade unionist, these new days off after returning from leave is an “abhorrent” situation because the management refused to certain employees to be able to take 4 consecutive weeks of leave. The latter imposes days of unemployment after barely a week of work … “
Lost wages
The CGT union denounces the loss of remuneration of certain employees (70% of gross) while “the Stellantis group announces 6 billion in profits for the first 6 months of 2021and this despite the production losses linked to the semiconductor crisis. “For the CGT union, the company must” cover 100% of salaries, bonuses included, to all Stellantis permanent workers but also to temporary workers ” .
On its Facebook page, FO Sochaux reiterates its desire that “the relocation of productions must be done as quickly as possible!”. The consequences on the lives of employees could worsen over the months.
Same request for relocation expressed by the CFDT union. In a leaflet published last July, the union called for the establishment of a Partial Long-Term Activity agreement (APLD) “will limit the financial impact for employees, particularly following the drop since July 1 in partial activity compensation (AP) “.
Since the start of 2021, the Sochaux plant has had to stop production several times. The semiconductor supply problems also have consequences for companies that work as subcontractors for Stellantis and for car dealerships forced to postpone the delivery of vehicles.
Isabelle Brunnarius with AFP.
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