SEAT announces a temporary mass lay-off affecting 571 workers per day over four months

Martorell (ACN).- Car manufacturer SEAT, which is part of the Volkswagen Group and is based in Greater Barcelona, announced on Monday a temporary mass lay-off affecting its entire staff. The measure is due to the decrease in car sales because of the economic crisis and SEAT’s negative results. The plan will be adopted in two phases. The first phase will last from September to December of 2013. 571 contracts per day will be temporarily suspended, in turns. In addition, the production lines for the Audi Q3 and the Seat Exceo in Martorell’s factory (in Greater Barcelona) will be closed for 16 days, affecting 2,800 employees. The Exceo car model will no longer be produced as of 2014, as part of the company’s plan to renew its models on offer. Furthermore, next year there will be a second phase of temporary lay-offs, when the Seat Leon’s production line will be closed for 35 days, affecting 3,800 workers also in Martorell. The company explained through a press release that the decision was taken “after having exhausted all the internal flexibility measures”.

The measure responds to the company’s need to adjust the car production to the decrease in sales due to the economic crisis and the consequent drop of car demand in Spain. SEAT foresees that in 2013 it will sell 9,000 fewer cars than the number it had initially planned for the current year. The management of SEAT, which is chaired by its new President Jürgen Stackmann, stated in the aforementioned press release that the measure has been adopted to “guarantee all the staff are kept on”.

The company presented the proposal of a temporary mass lay-off to the Committee of the workers’ representatives on Monday afternoon. Then, SEAT filed the proposal with the Catalan Ministry of Employment. The car manufacturer has not had to present a mass lay-off since 2010. “The proposal is 80 pages long, and we now have to study it carefully”, Matías Carnero, the Chairman of the Committee of the workers’ representatives of the Martorell factory, told the CNA.

Trade unions are hopeful that, during the 15-day consultation period that starts today, the company and the workers’ representatives will be able to get their views closer together. “We disagree about the figures”, stated Carnero, since the unions would like the number of contracts affected per day to be around 300 instead of 571. The management of SEAT announced that they “are willing to negotiate a social plan” to be implemented together with the lay-off, aiming to minimise its effects. The company and the unions have agreed to hold the first round of talks on Thursday the 11^th of July.