Located along the coal to Flohimont , a small village attached administratively to the municipality of Fromelennes, KME plant is unquestionably a monument of industry Pointe . By his senior first since it is the distant descendant of a wheat mill converted into in 1817 to manufacture rolling plates of brass and zinc before brothers tourists, industrialists givetois, not bought it in 1841 and specializes in the manufacture of various copper . But also by its size as the site of 50 hectares it occupies, 8 of which are covered include among others a pipe mill building an industrial length of 650 meters, a stack with a height of 82 meters (!) who watches like a sentinel Area since 1912 and a water tower with a capacity of 500 m-cube . Not to mention its economic weight because even if she does not play not in the category of the Chooz nuclear power plant, it is one of exceptional facilities, including tax contributions are capped for the benefit of a number of municipalities and employs 370 employees , which is the first private employer in the Pointe.
An institution so remarkable at all points of view , this has not prevented her last French owner, the nationalized company Pechiney, assigned in 1987 the Italian group SMI become the meantime through its merger with TMX and KM-Kabelmetal in 1995, the first transformer global copper. What offer good prospects for the future, they said so at the time! Alas, the reality was very different because the company now specializes in the manufacture of industrial tubes for air conditioning and refrigeration, plumbing tube Building and billets for its own consumption but also for the plants NIEDERBRUCK in Alsace and Kirley, England, has undergone very serious difficulties between 2002 and 2005 which forced him to proceed to several waves of layoffs . This bad passes but was used to establish, early in 2003 a charter of values destiny, according to the sayings of the site manager to " promote collective actions, proactive and relevant " and create the conditions to remain "united , flexible, comprehensive and available . In short, a new management style based not on the "prescriptive" but on "participatory".
The original agreement was effective and allowed the plant to be considered by its owners as a site for the future. They have invested more than EUR 5 million between 2006 and 2008, by implanting in particular, compliance with environmental standards requires a new dust filtration system and a water cooling loaded carbon black . The beginning of a new golden age? Unfortunately not, since the economic crisis in 2009 led to a decline in production about 30% , forcing the company to use the partial unemployment one week per month from April. Since then the situation has not improved and management has announced at the end of last week it would conduct a site redesign centralizing all production in one workshop instead of the 2 currently available. The aim is obviously to reduce fixed costs by streamlining means, but it will not happen without social destruction since already talking about the deletion of a large sixty jobs ! While it should not be any compulsory redundancies, but only voluntary departures of employees benefiting from measures of age whose exact terms will be known in April.
For MRC 08, if this method to reduce the workforce is humanly acceptable , it does not lead to less further reduce salaried employment in Point, who did not need this bad shot after recent closures Sopal of CEC and Ardenity. It is therefore a very bad news for local businesses and services! Hopefully now that the disappearance of one of two scheduled workshops KME is not a prelude to the disappearance of one of two productions of tubes made in this plant so dear to the heart of the premises they were 1518 to move to visit during the Open Day "organized in September 2008 ...
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