The Stellantis factory in Figueruelas (Zaragoza province) has cleared the dark clouds that hung over its future for the coming years. This Monday, the works council has given its expected "yes" to the offer that the management transferred last week to close the new collective agreement for the next five years, which includes salary increases and guarantees production beyond the year 2030 The resulting document, which will not finally be submitted to the template referendum, will be signed in the coming days.
Negotiations were well underway when the company presented its latest offer last Friday, in which it committed to an industrial plan that includes the installation of an electric platform (which the group calls STLA), which in practice guarantees the production of vehicles with clean energy and new generation beyond 2030.
This was one of the key points of the conversations since Stellantis (formerly PSA Opel) will gradually lose the combustion models that it now produces. In principle, Figueruelas will say goodbye to the Citroën C3 'Aircross' and the Opel 'Crossland' at the beginning of 2024, when the new generations of both models will see the light of day, while that of the current Opel Corsa models will last until 2026, a year prior to the effective date of this agreement.
In return, everything indicates that the Aragonese plant will assume the manufacture of two new electric cars: the Peugeot 'e-208', scheduled for the third quarter of this year, and the Lancia 'Ypsilon', which will be launched in the spring of 2024.
Another of the union's main priorities, economic conditions, have also been resolved satisfactorily. The workers achieve a 5% salary increase for this year (between 3,000 and 4,200 euros per worker depending on the professional category) and accept moderation in their salaries with increases equal to the CPI and with a maximum of 4% until 2027, as well as the improvement of benefits pay to match it with that of their colleagues in Vigo and Madrid.
It also includes the conversion of 350 temporary and partial contracts into indefinite and full-time and the firm's commitment to carry out a restructuring study for older employees (that is, a departure plan for the most veteran).
The negotiation of this new agreement, which governs the working conditions of more than 5,200 workers, was reached with a different fund than previous agreements. At stake was the future of the factory in full metamorphosis of the automobile sector from the combustion engine to the electric vehicle. According to sources from the talks, in just two weeks both parties have come closer thanks to a conciliatory tone that has little to do with the tensions of previous negotiations.
This weekend, the affiliates of the UGT, CCOO, OSTA and CCP unions, which have a sufficient majority in the works council, gave broad support to the preliminary agreement during their assemblies. CGT and Stopel have shown their rejection and will vote against the "regression of working conditions" in the aspect of health.
