Although no demonstration of the bankruptcy situation of Bureau Veritas Gabon has been made, and while the parent company has generated 416 million euros in net profits in 2017, the leaders decided to close the subsidiary of Gabon. .
Thus, the cessation of activity was announced on May 30, 2018 by the Gabonese general manager and his boss, the Central Africa manager. The following day, the individual dismissal interviews were held in contempt, say staff representatives, Gabonese labor law, since it does not comply with the procedure laid down for economic redundancies. The public authorities are still not informed of the decision of Bureau Veritas Gabon.
Financial Afrik’s attempts to contact the branch’s managers (who have since deserted Gabon) and the headquarters in France have remained in vain. Some are on vacation, others do not want to answer. The concordant information indicates a “difficult financial situation”, aggravated by the redirection of contracts to Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon. Management has explicitly asked employees not to respond to calls for tenders since the beginning of 2018.
In what is described as a kind of voluntary amputation, only two services, obviously significant resource generators, and using only three employees, will continue their activities. This is the Service Verification Of Conformity (VOC), which employs one person and works with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. And Marine Service which employs two people and intervenes in the field of certification of ships.
The dismissed employees were constituted in collective, with a Committee to represent them, and 3 consultants (lawyer, trade unionist and actuary). They got a meeting on June 6 to initiate negotiations with their employer. This made it possible to agree on collective bargaining, between the councils of each party.
In this context, Bureau Veritas mandated its board to “negotiate and collect the membership of employees (…) to the proposal of the company.” The agent took a month and a half to come to Gabonese territory.
It should be noted that the first proposal of Bureau Veritas was lower than the legal minimum foreseen in the context of an economic redundancy. The final proposal of the employer, sent directly by email to each employee, unilaterally terminates the exchanges with the agents of the employees. It sets an 8-day ultimatum, with the threat of moving to an economic redundancy plan. However, these proposals, indicate the employees, are, neither more nor less, than what will be granted by the plan of economic dismissal.
The closure of the Bureau Veritas subsidiary in Gabon is not isolated. It follows that of Equatorial Guinea. The French group, certified ISO 14001 and OHSAS 1801, is a world leader in testing, inspection and certification. It presented in 2017 a turnover of 4.7 billion €.
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