STA, 6 June 2019 - Home appliances producer Gorenje will lay off 104 workers, which is fewer than the initially presented figure of 270, the in-house trade union said on Thursday.
Of the 1,481 workers planned to be laid off, 1,377 will be offered a new contract and the rest will be sacked, SKEI Gorenje said as it received the lay-off plan from the management.
Gorenje employs over 4,200 workers in Slovenia and abroad, and is amid reorganisation following last year's takeover by China's Hisense and EUR 37 million in net loss.
The union fears this is just the first step towards more lay-offs, which is in contradiction with Hisense's announcements about production expansion and new hirings.
It also insists that the former Gorenje management should be held responsible for the wrong decisions which had caused the group to sink into the red.
The union said social dialogue in the company was worrying; the management set the amount of the annual holiday allowance unilaterally, even if this is not in line with the collective bargaining agreement, noting the allowance was lower than in 2017.
The union blames such moves on the Slovenian advisers to the Chinese owners, which however risk falling out of favour with the employees.
Some trade unionists have according to SKEI Gorenje already received anonymous threats to be careful what they tell the media.
SKEI Gorenje thus announced it would fight for workers' rights with all means.
The management, on the other hand, said the new contracts had been checked by the trade union and some of its remarks taken into account.
The workers will start getting new contracts on Monday, a process planned to be completed by the end of June.
Earlier this year, Gorneje announced the majority of the planned redundancies would not affect production workers but cleaners, security staff and warehouse workers.
Meant to provide for Gorenje's sustainable growth and development, the reorganisation was said to apply to the entire group not the just the parent company in Velenje.
Gorenje generated almost EUR 1.2 billion in sales revenue last year, a 1.7% drop compared to 2017, finishing the year in the red.
