Closure of the Avient factory in Saint-Jeoire: the mayor goes as far as Luxembourg to obtain explanations
Posted on Jan. 12, 2022, 3:01 p.m.Updated Jan 12, 2022, 3:02 PM
Just before Christmas, the 40 employees of the plastic coloring plant in Saint-Jeoire en Faucigny (Haute-Savoie) learned of their dismissal due to the relocation of production from the site to Poland. If fifteen of them should be reclassified within another entity of the group, 26 will lose their jobs. A decision difficult to understand for the employees who were all green indicators, that profitability was good and that the order books were full. The mayor of Saint-Jeoire en Faucigny, Antoine Valentin, speaks of an “economic disaster” and figures at 40 the number of suppliers and service providers who will also be impacted by the elimination of this factory which had existed since 1947.
After unsuccessful calls and anxious to have an explanation, the mayor took his car to the European headquarters of Avient Corporation. And there it was not his surprise: “I expected a seat worthy of a multinational with 10,000 employees but the offices of Avient are in the attic of a supermarket.” To access it, the mayor pretends to be a delivery man and waits a good 3 hours before finding an interlocutor in the person of a communications manager. “They explain to me that this fence is the result of a rationalization of production and that it is legal, no doubt, but it is immoral,” storms the mayor. From his journey he still managed to get those responsible for Avient to appear on the site on January 31.
The multinational AVIENT CORP. announces closing the last factory in my village. For several weeks they have refused to respond to my requests. So I went to meet them at the Luxembourg headquarters…
The video of the meeting here 👉🏻 https://t.co/DQag8kblCn
– Antoine VALENTIN (@Valentin_Antoi) January 11, 2022
“A disaster for the carbon footprint”
While he is not really waiting for the relocation to Poland to be canceled, the mayor hopes that the site will be cleaned up so that he can create a business incubator to replace the lost jobs. “We are experiencing rapid deindustrialisation with the loss of 600 jobs in Péchiney already”, he notes. “The closure of the Avient site means 15% of jobs in the municipality of Saint-Jeoire suddenly disappear. It is the economic equilibrium of a valley which is durably destabilized ”, laments the elected official.
He recalls that the plant has just had Eaux d’Evian as its main customer, approximately less than an hour away. From now on, the plastic balls will be exported to Poland thousands of kilometers away to return colored to Evian, “an absurdity and a disaster for the carbon footprint”, laments the mayor.