Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-15-Speech-1-089"
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"en.19991115.7.1-089"2
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"Mr President, I am not going to repeat what the previous speakers have said about the need for this directive. A few days ago, Commissioner, it was said on the subject of the Michelin debate that intelligent approaches to restructuring were required. I shall give you the example of the restructuring of a company of European dimensions which has a European works council, which is intelligent, but only in one respect. And this is exactly what we are trying to avoid: a lack of balance in social dialogue. All of Parliament’s amendments have been very significant, and one that I consider to be extremely relevant is the one that expresses the need for ethics and good faith on all sides. What happened, for example, with the restructuring at Ford in Portugal is a prime example of what happens when this good faith is missing. At the end of the 1980s, Ford in Portugal had twelve hundred employees. The company moved the factory to Poland and promised investment in that country in return for state tax and other incentives. That investment was never fully made in Poland. And Ford is now announcing the closure of both factories: in Poland and in Portugal.
This kind of relocation and restructuring, Commissioner, is this century’s way of doing business. It has nothing to do with introducing new technology or with companies’ needs to maintain productivity levels. According to Ford, they do not have problems with their productivity levels; on the contrary, they say that these two plants and their workers are enormously productive. And the result is that because these employees are so highly specialised they will only be able to find work as unskilled workers.
We should be concerned by all of this social upheaval. It requires a response, it requires steering through, and it requires legislative measures and more besides! It was high time that the Commission started monitoring companies of this size because it is not the companies of fifty or a hundred employees that are under threat. Let us begin, then, with companies of European dimensions, and let us begin by assessing what a necessary restructuring actually is. We in the European Parliament represent both sides of industry, and one of them has no voice of its own, Commissioner. It is crucial that we let it be heard.
I sincerely hope that the Portuguese Presidency will provide a response to this and I shall use all my influence to this end."@en1
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