The collective agreement will be signed before the summer holidays and there will be no traumatic exits
Seat has reached an agreement in principle with the unions to adapt the company’s workforce to the lower workload involved in the future production of electric vehicles at the Martorell plant.
On Tuesday at Terramar, year one of the transformation of Seat SA was staged with the presentation of three new models of its sports brand, Cupra, in the legendary circuit of the early twentieth century.
Cupra, hand in hand with the senior staff not only of Seat but of the Volkswagen Group, including Oliver Blume, CEO of Porsche and head of manufacturing for the German consortium, and the two Piech and Porsche shareholder families, presented three new models, the Terramar, a medium SUV, the Tavascan, a medium but electric SUV, and the Urban Rebel, an electric urban successor to the Seat Ibiza and Arona.
This transformation towards Seat’s electric vehicle is piloted by Cupra and inevitably leads to a surplus of staff at Seat Martorell estimated at 2,800 people by its executive president Wayne Griffiths.
Beyond the fact that this could be a problem, Seat and the unions have already marked the roadmap and before the summer holidays the new collective agreement will be signed that will absorb this surplus workforce, according to Matías Carnero, president of the works council of Seat.
In fact, 1,330 people will leave with early retirement, with “very good conditions” and provided that in the period of the new agreement that would last until 2026 they turned 61 years old.
The other good news is that the Seat Components plant, which is located in El Prat de Llobregat, where around 1,000 people work, will not be closed. This plant now manufactures manual gearboxes for combustion vehicles. Some parts that do not exist in the electric car.
Unions and companies have agreed that in Seat Components four electrical parts and two more will be made, with which half of the workforce would guarantee their position.
In this way, and if the possible transfers to the battery plant that the Volkswagen Group will have in operation in Sagunto in 2026 are added, those 2,800 surplus staff that would be generated by the arrival of the electric car at Seat Martorell would be absorbed in this period. from 2025.
