Social plan at Comptoir des Cotonniers: "We did not expect it to be so strong"

The social crisis which succeeds the economic crisis continues to affect the textile sales sector.Comptoir des Cotonniers employees learned last week that 217 jobs were to be deleted.A real bleeding since the layoff plan concerns 40 % of the clothing brand workforce, owned by the Japanese giant of clothing Fast Retailing.According to a source close to the file cited by the AFP, 68 jobs of Princess Tam Tam, a brand held by the same group, are also threatened, which management has still not confirmed."We did not expect it to be so strong, explains Nathalie Michel, CGT Union De Cotonniers Union Cotonniers," Liberation Delegate Cotonniers.For employees, it was a big shock.We learned the news from an email sent on a Monday afternoon, with a video ... The 55-year-old employees, in small provincial towns, how will they find work? ”

Complicated mobilization

Management has confirmed to having presented the representative bodies of the two brands in early February “a plan consisting in closing in France, between [August] 2021 and [March] 2022, 24 Comptoir des Cotonniers and 7 Princess Tam Tam stores, as well as all corners and points of sale in department stores »».Or the trifle of 50 points of sale for the first brand and around twenty for the second, especially in the Galeries Lafayette and Spring.

According to Nathalie Michel, management set the end of the negotiations on May 11.But, between the health crisis and the closure of stores, the mobilization is complicated: "We suspect that they are going to go to the end on the closure of the stores, confides that which has been for twenty-two years in the box and whichThe store in Angoulême must close.With stores exploded throughout France, one to three people on average in the majority of shops, it's difficult.The trade unionist says she wanted to "fight during the negotiations to obtain the maximum for employees", at least as much as what had been obtained two years ago during the PSE at the head of Fast Retailing France.

"The situation has continued to get worse"»

The owners of the Nelson group, Tony and Georgette Elicha (parents of Alexandre, Laurent and Raphaël, founders of The Kooples), had created in 1995 the Comptoir des Cotonniers brand, which had made itself known by its pubs in which "real»»Mothers and girls posed with clothes of the same style.In 2005, it was bought by the Japanese group Fast Retailing, which notably owns the Uniqlo juggernaut.A few months later, Princess Tam Tam is also bought.These two French brands were then expanding, some even speak of "success-store".Fast Retailing had promised their development outside France.But it has never taken, and the bad financial results have succeeded, in recent years, to store closings.

The management also evokes a situation which precedes the health crisis: "The Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princess Tam Tam Tam Tam Tams have experienced difficulties for several years and despite the efforts already made, the situation has continued to worsen.Both are very strongly impacted by the clothing market crisis.In its quarterly results, Fast Retailing Monde only announced that the "French brand Comptoir des Cotonniers suffered a drop in turnover and greater operational loss after being forced to temporarily close all [its] stores in France for aboutone month from the end of October ".

"Unslaired management choice"»

For Nathalie Michel, from the CGT, the economic situation is far from explaining everything: “Our leaders have multiplied the inappropriate management choices.They wanted to make a Uniqlo Premium, with increasingly reduced collections, some models available in 15 colors ... It works very well for their typology of stores but they tried to adapt it to completely opposite concepts.Japanese management wants to lead our collections too much."After claiming an artistic direction located in France," closer to customers ", the teams finally won the case a year ago.Not yet enough, regrets Nathalie Michel, to win back customers: “Lately, customers I have known for years came and said to me to take two T-shirts to please me because they found nothing.»»

Fast Retailing's financial record since September is in any case in good fixes.In its results announced in January, the group announces a net profit of 70.3 billion yen (544 million euros), almost stable over one year (-0.6 %). Le groupe confirme d’ailleurs ses prévisions pour l’année, et en février Fast Retailing est devenu le numéro 1 mondial de l’habillement en termes de capitalisation boursière, dépassant Inditex, le propriétaire de Zara et Pull & Bear.Good health of the group around the world which will also materialize in France.A few months after Fast Retailing announced the dismissal of more than 200 employees, the old and symbolic Samaritaine, located rue de Rivoli in Paris, is to accommodate a 20,000 m² store in Uniqlo, the flagship of the Japanese group.