“Marie Claire, Marie Claire, a pantyhose for every woman” intoned four female voices in a 1970s television ad for the well-known hosiery firm. Years later, another more transgressive, started with an imposing, blonde woman, stomping on an eighties spot that closed with the cry of "Marie Claire, Marie Claire, the new woman's colored pantyhose."
This and other spots can be viewed on YouTube thanks to the compilation of an online underwear store that a decade ago grouped several of the black and white television advertisements of this firm born in the interior of the Valencian Community, now news after knowing this Tuesday that enters pre-bankruptcy.
It is the company's last attempt to save itself. The pandemic was a blow to the company, which, at that time, began to mass-produce sanitary material and came to produce 25,000 masks and 15,000 gowns a day. Since then they have not been replaced. Currently the workload is 50% less than before the pandemic and union representatives acknowledge that it is "difficult" for the company to assume the current wage bill.
Nor has the energy crisis helped. In a statement, the company ensures that the rise in costs has led to an increase in electricity and gas by more than 300%, a rise in raw material prices of more than 35% and a collapse in the supply chain that has affected production and distribution times. "As a Spanish manufacturer, these levels of productive spending were almost unsustainable," he argues.
In the same statement, the company maintains that it is in negotiations with its main creditors to renegotiate its debt and guarantee its long-term viability, but from the works council, its president Cristóbal Monfort, assures that "it would have to work a miracle". As an employee, he conveys the feeling of a finished stage and details how there are employees who have already started to collect their things.
However, José María Gutiérrez, general secretary of CCOO-PV Industria, explains that the company currently "has no debts with the workers, but I don't know if they will be able to collect the May payroll." He is also concerned about the pending payment of compensation to employees who left the company in January invoking their right to do so due to a substantial change in their working conditions. The union was the one that alerted to the situation on Tuesday, after the meeting between the firm's management and the works council, which it informed of its intention to start the consultation period starting next Monday, June 5.
The complex financial situation already took its toll in 2021 on the Borriol logistics center, inaugurated in 2004 as a pioneer center in technology applied to industrial production. "We know that the company has implemented measures, but we are already experiencing a drama with the closure of the logistics center and it seemed that with the plan that was drawn up it would be saved, but then Covid arrived and it was not even fixed with masks and gowns," recalls Gutiérrez.
The company has had an ERTE active since January -and until July- for its 130 workers at the plant located in Vilafranca, where some 90 people are currently working in production. The closure coincided with the purchase by the company Think Textil -which has Inditex as its main client- in an operation endorsed by the Valencian Institute of Finance (IVF) through a financing plan on account of the fight against depopulation . In total there are almost 300, between the plant, the offices of Valencia, Castellón and the promoters.
"If we already have depopulation in the interior, the closure would be a drama for the entire area," reflects the head of CCOO-PV Industria. The mayor of Vilafranca, Silvia Colom, expressed the same concern on Tuesday, who in a statement advocated the need to "find a financial solution that prevents the closure of the company and maintains the maximum number of jobs." The first mayor, who revalidated her position last Sunday with 60% of the votes in this small municipality, with only 2,154 inhabitants, urges both the company's management and the Administrations to work "urgently on that objective", which is none other than keeping the company's activity alive, which he describes as "vital" both for the town and for the Alt Maestrat region.
Considered strategic for the Valencian economy due to the high percentage of economic activity and employment it generates in the same region, the company collected up to 21 million euros from the Valencian government in two batches.
Within the framework of the aid from the Valencian Resilience Fund, the aim was to promote the viability of this company founded by the Aznar family in 1907 and which reaches 2023 with a long list of historical events that have been overcome and not a few difficulties to solve. "We are all with a knot in the stomach," acknowledges Monfort, who together with the representatives of the UGT-PV says they will strive to achieve a decent start for the entire squad.
