The MasOrange redundancy plan (ERE) is still ongoing and more details are gradually becoming known. Recently, the joint venture has made an initial distribution of the affected workers among its different companies. More than 18% of the workforce of Orange’s subsidiaries and 15% of those of MásMóvil will be laid off.
The exclusive report on the voluntary redundancy plan for MasOrange was released at the beginning of September by the media outlet Expansión. Now, with the redundancy plan that has come to light, the unions believe that they have broken with the voluntary nature that they promised and that they will cause forced dismissals if the initial period of affiliation is not reached.
The shares in the MasOrange joint venture are shared equally between Orange and MásMóvil. Each company has 50% and they have included some of the subsidiaries they work with in the joint entity. However, the collective dismissal was only going to be felt in six of these companies. These were Orange, Yoigo, Lorca Telecom, R Cable and Euskaltel. Between them they have 4,600 employees.
MasOrange’s ERE in figures
Initially, with the ERE, they announced that they were going to lay off 795 employees. However, it is expected that as negotiations progress, the figure will be reduced. Some anonymous sources related to the matter indicate that Orange Spain will reunite 18.3% of those affected. That is, 521 people out of around 2,850 who work for them.
Of these more than 500 employees, the Orange Spain Fixed Telecommunications division (Osfi) will lay off 33 individuals out of the 149 on staff. Furthermore, the anonymous sources stress that the collective layoffs will be most noticeable in Madrid and Barcelona, but also because this is where the operator has the most presence.
The Orange Spain departments that will suffer most from the ERE are:
- Finance, with 24% of its workforce
- Technology and customer operations, with 21% of its workforce
- Business to business (B2B), with 9.7% of the workforce
The part of the joint venture that corresponds to MásMóvil will affect four companies and, in total, will add up to 15% of layoffs. According to anonymous sources, R Cable will get rid of 35 workers, Euskatel of 39 and, between Xfera Móviles (from Yoigo) and Lorca, they will reach 170 employees.
How the MasOrange ERE is being experienced from within
The Orange workforce is not happy with the higher percentage of employees laid off due to the ERE. In addition, the ERE negotiation has been carried out in a hurry, with almost no time for labour integration in the MasOrange union. The merger of Orange and MásMóvil has caused different collective agreements, with different economic conditions, to be mixed together. There was still no workers’ representation table and it had to be created in a short time for the ERE negotiations.
For their part, the unions CCOO, UGT, USO, ELA and CGT have joined together in a joint statement to express their rejection of the ERE. The unions describe the redundancy programme as unjustified and claim that it contradicts the promises made by management. In their letter, they considered that it was essential that the ERE be voluntary and, with the latest news that has been released, they put this principle in jeopardy.
Some internal sources explain that the percentages given for the distribution of dismissals in the workforce are not yet definitive. That is, they may change in the voluntary recruitment phase after closing the consultation period and with the talks with the unions.
