ERE in Almussafes The Government justifies Ford's golden early retirements at the gates of the new Perte for the electric car

The Government not only puts itself in profile before the employment regulation file (ERE) in Ford, but also justifies that the company is going to get rid of 1,124 workers through early retirement from the age of 53 and incentive plans for reasons of flexibility

ERE in Almussafes The Government justifies Ford's golden early retirements at the gates of the new Perte for the electric car

The Government not only puts itself in profile before the employment regulation file (ERE) in Ford, but also justifies that the company is going to get rid of 1,124 workers through early retirement from the age of 53 and incentive plans for reasons of flexibility . A decision that clashes flatly with the approach on which the pension reform revolves and that is based on the need to increase the workforce and delay the effective retirement age to guarantee the financial sustainability of the system.

Consulted about the agreement on Tuesday, different ministries in the government's economic area declined to make "assessments" on "internal company issues." A silence that contrasts with the fierce criticism that members of the Council of Ministers have poured out against other major business movements that have occurred recently.

Although the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, did take a position yesterday when defending that Ford's case would be "justified for reasons of flexibility." The architect of the pension reform assured that there are fewer and fewer cases of this type and the effective retirement age is increasing (passes 64 years). That is, he said, the "right direction."

In any case, he asked for "a reflection" on work among those over 55 in Spain, with an activity rate below the European average, and stressed that in many sectors "the transfer of knowledge must materialize through labor relations and professional career that require adjustments.

Precisely, the Minister of Economy in the Valencian Government, Rafa Climent, highlights the "contradiction" involved in approving early retirement at 53 years of age in the midst of a debate on increasing the retirement age to make the pension system sustainable. "It is not good news that at age 53 a person stops working," she says. "If we are in the debate that people retire beyond 60, it is not positive if what you want is to rebalance the system," he insists, and more so at a time when "the administrations are fighting to achieve that the maximum number of people is working, joins Social Security and contributes”, reports Noa de la Torre.

The truth is that, to date, Minister Escrivá has defended the incentives for delayed retirement. They became, in fact, his workhorse during the negotiation of the first part of the pension reform with employers and unions. He managed to introduce changes on delayed, early and forced retirement to bring the real retirement age closer to the ordinary one, with the aim of neutralizing spending and shoring up accounts.

In parallel, in the framework of the negotiation for the design of the new ERTE mechanism -the one named RED, which was born as a solution for internal flexibility and employment stabilization after the shock of the pandemic- it was precisely Escrivá who defended that these processes They had to become a kind of bridge between companies to avoid, through training and requalification, that workers, especially the most veteran ones, fell into inactivity in the final stretch of their professional careers.

The Government's non-position regarding early retirement at Ford contrasts with the statements of Reyes Maroto, then Minister of Industry, once this ERE was announced. Public aid to promote the electric transition of the car "is conditioned on maintaining employment," she said.

The aid to which he was referring is the European funds of the PERTE VEC (of the Electric and Connected Vehicle). In its first call, the multinational received 106.34 million. But he renounced them because the investments for the new electric cars that will be made in Almussafes could not be carried out before mid-2025, as required by that plan.

Now, they could even be delayed until 2028, which is the new limit that will be set in the second round of the plan.

Industry sources pointed out yesterday to this newspaper that the impact that the ERE could have on the aid is not yet known, since that call is still being outlined. Also, what volume of employment was Maroto referring to? When the second PERTE window opens, the ERE will have been signed for several months and hundreds of workers will have left the company.

In fact, the layoffs will take place between May 2 and December 31, but it is foreseeable that they will occur much earlier since the incentive redundancy plan adds 40,000 euros for those who leave before July and 20,000 if it is before October.

The current candidate for mayor of Madrid also forgot about Seat's precedent in 2022. The company, together with VW and 60 other companies, make up the Fast Future Forward (F3) project, which will electrify the Landaben and Martorell plants and add a battery plant in Sagunto. The planned investment is 10,000 million.

After a last and controversial phase, the F3 project obtained 400 million euros from the first PERTE. And that after Seat signed the new collective agreement that, among other measures, provides for the progressive extinction (non-traumatic) of 1,330 jobs. The argument is to adjust the Martorell workforce to the lower workforce that will be required by the small electrics that will be assembled there from 2025. No one from the Government said anything, despite the fact that the agreement was closed in July and the PERTE bases had been published four months before.

Perhaps because they know -and they knew- that the electrification of the automobile will claim thousands of jobs in the factories, although part will be compensated by other activities in the value chain. Wayne Griffiths, president of Seat Cupra, said it and the then president of Ford of Europe, Stuart Rowley, announced it after assigning the new electric vehicles to Valencia. So the former minister knew this when she visited Almussafes in February and said they were working with Ford to get him to apply for the second PERTE, that it would cover "all his needs" and even that he "could be eligible for more funds."

The intention is not to repeat the failure of the initial call, which assigned only 800 million of 2,975 million. For this reason, in addition to extending the term until 2028, the conditions will be made more flexible, admitting individual projects compared to the complex associations (with 40% of SMEs) of before. There will even be its own line for batteries, which will open earlier and provides for aid of up to 350 million if they are located in low-income areas. This is the case of the Envision gigafactory in Cáceres.

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