Day 1, a black day for 9000 employees

The European Works Council of Alcatel invite all employees not to celebrate the official merger on Day 1.

Full concern and priority to financial aspects

Currying favour on the financial markets and in shameful subjugation to them, as of last April the management of Alcatel and Lucent promised a deep cut of 9.000 jobs. The men and women working for both companies are nothing more than a variable in the financial adjustments. A merger between two profitable companies with a priority on cost cutting and the reduction of jobs cannot be accepted enthusiastically by the workforce. Placing the spotlight on synergies masks the technological and market interests of this merger, and further undermines the motivation among a workforce already disillusiond by continuous restructurings.

A threat to European R&D;

This merger involves a major risk: the reduction of R&D; in Europe, caught between low cost R&D; in China and India and R&D; in USA, considered more innovative. We share the analysis of S. Tchuruk on the European telecom market that is one of the most fiercely competitive ones, fed by extremely liberal policies, but we cannot accept the abandoning of European R&D;, its reduction and withering with the suspension of recruitment of young people.

More outsourcing, relocation and rationalization

This attack on employement is undoubtedly going to be implemented and extended during the restructuring of Alcatel-Lucent. The start of the transfer of accounting to Romania, the closing of sites and the centralization of support taks (IT, supply chain, human resources, etc.) are all going to have serious consequences on employement.

A social dialogue restricted to simply dealing with the fallout

In full conflict with the European Directives on information and consultation for European Works Councils in the event of corporate restructurings, the management of Alcatel and Lucent has only given information already made public after April 2006. As it was to be expected, employee representatives will only be permitted to negotiate on the social consequences, without having any influence on the diecisions. The company has even refused to negotiate a new EWC agreement for the new company.

For all these reasons we are calling on the workforce not to join in any celebrations on Day 1. The European Works Council of Alcatel will be calling on the workforce to mobilize to try and limit the consequences of the restructuring.