"We made a giant cave in"

"We made a giant cave in"

Olivier Leberquier, an employee at the SCOP TI cooperative and CGT workplace representative, shows a box that summarises the Fralib factory workers’ battle against Unilever.

(Feriel Alouti)
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A four-year battle is summarised in a single sentence on the back of a machine. "Those who do not fight have already lost whilst those who fight can cherish the hope of winning."

It is a slogan 47-year-old Amar Hassani, who spent 30 years working for Unilever, is not about to forget.

"We fought, we cried and, thanks to a great deal of determination and support, we have shown that a factory making a profit can be kept alive," he declares with pride and emotion.

Yet things had by no means started out on a good footing. In September 2010, the management of Unilever, the fourth largest company in the agrifood market, told the 182 employees at the Fralib factory in Gémenos, near Marseille, that production was going to be relocated to Brussels and Poland.

The workers decided to fight and, after "a 1336-day trade union and legal struggle", and court rulings against three job-saving plans (plan de sauvegarde de l’emploi, or PSE), they are now preparing to launch their own tea and infusions cooperative, all with the help of Unilever, which has committed to pay €19.2 million.

When the agreement was signed, on Monday, 26 May 2014, the tears flowed. "There is real satisfaction in making a giant cave in. We have won a major battle, but now we have another fight on our hands," says Olivier Leberquier, the CGT representative who played a leading role in the struggle.

This other ’fight’ is to ensure the success of the Société Coopérative Ouvrière de Production de Thés et Infusions (SCOP TI), their workers’ cooperative producing tea and infusions. The former employees are now going to have to plunge into the market economy and grapple with competition.

 

Organic produce and short supply chains

Under the agreement signed by Unilever, each of the 76 workers who held out until the end will receive €100,000 (US$126,000), the others having agreed to lower settlements over time.

Fifty eight of them have decided to reinvest a part of this money in the workers’ cooperative. The ’cooperators’ will work in the same factory, bought by the Urban Community of Marseille, and with the same machines, which Unilever sold for ’a symbolic euro’.

The multinational will also pay out €3 million to finance training, modernisation of the facilities, the salary of a commercial director and market research, in preparation for the relaunching of operations by March 2015.

"We have given ourselves until the end of the year to tie up the project," explains Leberquier.

The cooperative is banking on an initial output of 500 tonnes a year, as compared with the 3000 tonnes being produced when the company closed down.

Aside from supplying established brands, it also hopes to develop its own, higher quality brand, to reconnect with certain values and know-how. The plan is to produce organic herbal infusions with natural flavouring.

The cooperative wants to work with local producers of linden, verbena and other medicinal plants, the idea being to revive activities that have almost died out and to prioritise short supply chains.

"Until the year 2000, the region was producing 400 tonnes of linden a year, in contrast with the 15 tonnes produced today," laments Leberquier.

As for the tea, the cooperators have already pinpointed a producer working with 300-year-old tea trees in the north of Vietnam.

"It’s not about treating producers like slaves. We want a responsible economy," says the CGT representative.

 

’Collective management’

The workers are also reflecting on the SCOP’s organisational structure. "Even though we know we won’t put an end to capitalism, we don’t want to work the same way as other companies do," insists Leberquier.

The cooperative will not pay out dividends and is looking into establishing a single salary.

It also wants to rest on the principle of ’collective management’. The Annual General Meeting will establish a course of action and strategic choices that the board will discuss on a regular basis.

Unlike in an ordinary company, these 11 ’advisors’, elected for four years, can be removed from the board at any time if the majority so chooses.

For the rest, the cooperators are each trying to come to grips with their new positions. "For some, it’s still hard to go from being a worker responding to orders to being a decision maker," says Leberquier.

It is a challenge each of them hopes to rise to. "It is great to finally be able to make our own plans and decisions. Of course I am afraid, but there will always be difficulties, we just have to face up to them," says Amar Hassani with a smile.

 

This article has been translated from French.