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In order to reduce the damage to the French economy, the government devised a plan to shore up its economy during the pandemic. This plan is the “partial activity” scheme, the purpose of which is to allow companies to put workers on reduced or furloughed working hours while the State finances most of their salaries in an attempt to avoid a wave of mass layoffs. . In this context, luxury goods companies, LVHM and Kering, had previously informed their employees about the groups' participation in an emergency government aid plan, however they backed down after Hermès and Chanel They committed to coping with the situation without resorting to the support of the State, in a spirit of “national solidarity.” It is known that both the workers of Louis Vuiton and Sephora, LVHM's most important brand and the beauty retailer, were part of the companies that declared (after the emergency closure in France on March 15) their inclusion in the program of the government, even reversing that decision two weeks ago. A similar situation developed with Guchi's owner, Kering, where, according to Yannik Blaise – a union representative in Boucheron – three meetings had been held in recent weeks with the aim of including staff in the aforementioned scheme, not However, last Monday the union was informed that the plan would not go forward.
To date, there are around 473 thousand companies that have requested help to cover the costs of approximately 5 million workers at a cost of more than 11,000 million euros for the State. On the other hand, some groups, such as Total and Société Générale, committed not to use the partial activity scheme. Chanel, which is privately owned and family controlled, stated in a statement on March 28 that it had no intention of using the aid program at this stage of the crisis, as it America Cell Phone Number List had no objective of weighing on public accounts and preferred that priority be given to helping the most vulnerable companies and their resources should be focused on the health system, its doctors, as well as its nurses. Hermès went a step further when it promised on April 1 that it would maintain the salaries of its 15,500 employees worldwide and would not fall into any “partial activity” during the crisis. For its part, a spokesperson for LVHM said that the company does not usually make decisions based on what the competition does. The reality is that resorting to state aid has become a sensitive issue for some of France's largest companies, since asking for help risks turning internal issues into matters of public debate.
Given the decision not to resort to the aid plan, a CGT labor representative at Sephora, Jenny Urbina, said that the company informed its employees that the reversal regarding depending on the scheme would apply throughout LVHM with the exception of its newspapers Les Echos and Le Parisien. I think they moved too quickly and didn't think about what it would look like, and they got caught out when competitors made their announcements. He also stated: While we are happy that the company did this, at CGT we thought it was scandalous that LVMH wanted to seek help from the State. These programs are supposed to help fragile businesses and workers who really need it, not big, profitable ones. Now, it is also true that the billionaire owners of LVHM and Kering, Bernard Arnault and Francois-Henri Pinault, respectively, donated money and resources to the fight against COVID-19 in recent weeks. Likewise, LVHM received praise for having adapted perfume factories to produce hand sanitizers for health workers.
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發表於 2024-2-19 16:37:46