Doors to Makro stores will close at 3 p.m. this Friday. Nearly 1,400 workers will therefore be on the floor, with no other compensation than the closure fund. The company having declared itself bankrupt, it benefits from the law of judicial reorganization procedure, the PRJ. A procedure that offers a few months of respite to companies to relaunch and consider the future. It allows in particular to freeze its debts for a few months vis-à-vis banks, suppliers or customers. Time to find the best solution to continue the activity.
We can absolutely say that we are in a complete social scam
If this procedure is a precious help for small companies in difficulty, it allows, according to Alain Goelens, permanent secretary in Charleroi, large multinationals to exploit a loophole to avoid paying compensation to workers: “We can absolutely say that we are in a complete social scam”explains Alain Goelens.
“When the Metro group sold to Bronze Properties, an investment fund last June, it cleared itself of all social responsibility when it had workers with 30, 35, 40-year careers. A month and a half later, the fund in turn launched a judicial reorganization procedure which also automatically cleared it of its social responsibilities. And so in the end, the workers find themselves today without notice, without anything, everything will be paid for by the community via the closure fund and unemployment and therefore for us, it’s a scam.“
