The multinational Roca Sanitario will cut one in four jobs in its historic factory located between Viladecans and Gavà, as reported by the company yesterday. The adjustment at the Roca family plant will affect 168 workers out of a workforce of 700 employees.
The factory is mainly specialized in the production of porcelain and taps, along with some minor sections of composite products (composite materials) and assembly of bathroom furniture and screens. The impact will focus precisely on those sections that are not the basic porcelain or faucet business.
In a statement, the Catalan company assured that "it is confident of being able to maintain a constructive dialogue and reach favorable agreements for all those affected, given its willingness to negotiate early retirement plans that allow non-traumatic exits for the affected units." Company sources said the objective is to avoid forced departures.
From CC.OO., the secretary of the union section at Roca Sanitario, Juan José Jiménez, explained yesterday that “we are not going to sign anything that is not with voluntary departures.” The union member added that in yesterday's meeting they appreciated a positive predisposition on the part of the company to adapt the ERE to their voluntary requests. Workers are now analyzing from what age they could consider exits such as, for example, early retirement. The next negotiating meeting is scheduled for next Thursday.
Roca Sanitario justified the measure in “the gradual decline in sales in recent years, as well as the negative forecast of the market in the eurozone as a whole.” They did not detail financial figures. The unions analyze with their technical offices the documentation delivered yesterday.
The company wanted to highlight that the Catalan factory "will continue to operate regularly at an industrial level and will continue to be a global reference center, at the forefront of technological innovation and sustainability in bathroom products."
Roca's ERE joins a long list of collective employment adjustments in Catalonia, which have led to an increase this year in the number of people affected by 59% in the first half of the year. The data for the January-June period show that a total of 3,399 people lost their jobs in a collective dismissal process compared to 2,140 in the same period in 2022. So far this year, the collective job cuts of technology companies such as Glovo, Wallbox, GI Group 2016 or the Facebook subcontractor in Barcelona. The EREs occur in an environment of job creation and falling unemployment.
