“The decision of the General Council was to validate the project, in itself it is very good news”, welcomed the general manager of the means of payment of the bank Erick Lacourrège in a telephone interview with AFP.
Work should start soon: the bank is now entering a new phase of regarding two months before the “start as such of the construction of the factory”, according to Mr. Lacourrège.
The construction of a new ticket printing plant to replace the current plant in Chamalières, near Clermont-Ferrand, was initially completed last summer. But it had been suspended in early June by management following a strike called in December 2022.
The strikers denounced a “competitiveness plan” planning to reduce from 4 to 3 the number of agents around certain machines on the new site.
The signing of an agreement this week by the CGT Banque de France put an end to this social conflict and “opens the way for the implementation of Refoundation”, the name given to the new factory project, indicates a press release from the central bank sent following the meeting on Friday.
This agreement provides for “several measures including the appointment by September of an ergonomist who will ensure, accompanied by a joint group, the preventive treatment of hardship”, is it also indicated in the document.
An exceptional bonus of 500 euros will also be paid to printers, strikers and non-strikers.
The General Council of the bank “welcomed with satisfaction the success of these negotiations and the involvement of the social partners in achieving this promising result”, specifies the press release.
“Massive” investment
The showdown between management and the strikers, which lasted more than 7 months, even mobilized LFI deputy Eric Coquerel, also chairman of the National Assembly’s Finance Committee, but also Laurent Brun, number two of the CGT and secretary general of the federation of railway workers, both present at a demonstration on June 28 in front of the bank’s headquarters in Paris.
“Our organization, which is the majority in the manufacture of banknotes and the institution’s leading union, remains vigilant as to the follow-up to this file and force of proposals for its good finalization”, reacted the CGT Banque de France.
The agreement concluded between the unions and the bank provides that the current factory in Chamalières, also in Puy-de-Dôme some 30 kilometers from Vic-le-Comte, will return to normal operation with the return to work of all the staff, until the start of work on the future printing press.
The successive delays of this project, which must see the light of day next to the current stationery of the central bank, have also increased the bill to more than 250 million euros, once morest around 200 million euros in the estimate at the end of 2016.
This “massive investment” for the bank must allow “the manufacture of banknotes at the best cost”, according to her.
When the project is completed in 2026, France should have “the most modern, efficient and ecological public banknote production center in Europe”, welcomes the Banque de France.
The current printing works has been in operation since 1917 in Chamalières on a site which “has reached its limits of evolution”, specifies the Banque de France on its website.
