Since December 3, the engines have been at a standstill at BorgWarner, an American automotive supplier located in the industrial area of La Montane, in Eyrein, near Tulle (Corrèze). Announced in June 2020, its relocation to Hungary is confirmed, to complete a gradual dismantling which will have seen its machines go one by one towards Eastern Europe.
Opened in November 2005, the vast 70,000 m2 complex employed 368 people in the manufacture of sequential gearboxes (which operate without a clutch pedal) for Volkswagen. For reasons of profitability, employees will go to other destinies, despite an employment safeguard plan in place and lost hopes of recovery.
An inevitable social breakdown
For six months, part of the staff has already left the premises. Some 80 people remain in place at the beginning of the year for three short months, the doors closing definitively on March 1, 2022. About twenty of them are in Hungary to reassemble the machines and restart production, but the social breakdown is inevitable.
The conflict between unions, staff and management agitated all of Corrèze for two years. Jean-François Salles, mayor of Eyrein, expressed his anger: “It revolts me that we are moving a business that was doing very well, only in the name of money. With the subcontractors, we will arrive at 1,300 jobs lost in the department… ”
There remain the premises, on the way to becoming a large industrial wasteland. The Belgian auto parts manufacturer Punch took over for a while, but gave up. Other companies are said to be in the running, but the selling price – 4 million euros – remains an obstacle. Currently, the only activity that continues on the site is that of mail, with the sending of dismissal letters …