For Oumar Kaba, the countdown started last November when his employer, the cooperative company Scopelec, lost a gigantic contract with Orange. He who deploys and repairs fiber optic networks in Charente sees the deadline approaching, that of his dismissal. His wife and daughter were soon to join him in France, thanks to family reunification: “I wonder how I am doing at the moment to go to work. Nobody is quiet.” “We don’t want to leave overnight our box where we have affinities, where we feel good to find ourselves in the postures of newcomers. Going to other companies without knowing how humanly It will happen.” Oumar Kaba, employee-partner at Scopelec at franceinfo Oumar is one of the fifty or so employee-partners gathered on Thursday April 21 at Place de la Bastille in Paris to denounce the job protection plan being prepared by the management of Scopelec. This PSE provides for the redundancy of 800 people, or nearly a quarter of the workforce. “This is one of the heaviest social plans France has seen in months,” Scopelec wrote in an open letter addressed to the two presidential candidates, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. “We are necessarily expecting something, that’s for sure, at the point where we have reached, confides Martin, an employee of Scopelec in Vendée. This is the third time that we have come to Paris to demonstrate and concretely all that we have had it’s nothing at all. To be polite: we’re in deep shit. The outgoing president must do something to support us at least.” According to the Ministry of the Economy, 500 employees have already agreed to be reclassified with a competitor, another subcontractor of Orange. After seven years in the company, Benoît Lesueur decided to change sectors: “Personally, it would be more support for training. It would rather be to extend to another sector of activity, support for retraining with, if possible, a maintained salary. Because despite everything, we have women, children, credits.” Publication of associated employees pic.twitter.com/1nxJJC7AcU — Groupe SCOPELEC (@GroupeScopelec) January 21, 2022 By losing its contract with Orange, Scopelec must give up 150 million euros per year, which represents 40% of its turnover. ‘business. For the management and the employees, it is therefore up to the operator to finance, at least in part, the training of the dismissed personnel. Ralph Blindauer, the lawyer for the cooperative’s works council, believes that Orange is responsible for the 800 jobs cut: “We are in a situation in which we finally give ourselves the right of life and death over the subcontractor .” “Orange has civic responsibilities, it must assume them. And therefore, Orange must give us enough to pay for a quality social plan for these employees. ” Ralph Blindauer, works council lawyer at franceinfo But this t is a clear refusal for the moment on the side of the operator, announces Marc Blanchet, technical director and information systems of Orange France: “For us, it is a request which is completely out of place, which does not come under not the contractual relationship that we may have with our partner. We have played a role in facilitating the reclassification of employees and providing enough activity to allow Scopelec to manage a transition phase, which is obviously not easy. Volumes of activity, at least temporarily for the months, for the quarters to come.” Orange has offered 43 million euros of business to Scopelec by the end of next year. It would take more than twice as much for the company, she says, to finance the social plan.