Coteminas, which will produce for Shein, wants to fire 700 – 07/03/2023 – Market

Coteminas (Companhia de Fabrics Norte de Minas) intends to fire around 700 employees at its unit in Blumenau, Santa Catarina, according to the Syndicate of Textile Workers of Blumenau, Gaspar and Indaial (Sintrafite).

In a meeting held last week, the company would also have informed that the payment of severance pay for these workers would be made in 15 installments.

This Monday morning (3), employees met in an assembly in front of the factory’s main gate and decided to create a negotiation committee with the company.

Coteminas says that the Blumenau industrial unit will undergo production adjustments. There, according to the company, “a new work model will be implemented that will require new industrial equipment and adequacy of its staff.”

Workers believe that the new model envisaged by the company is related to the contract signed by Coteminas with Shein.

The company, commanded by Josué Gomes da Silva, president of Fiesp (Federation of Industries of São Paulo), is one of the companies contracted by the Asian giant to nationalize the fashion retail production.

On Thursday (29), Josué Gomes was in Brasília (DF), where, alongside the governor of Rio Grande do Norte, Fátima Bezerra (PT), the president of Shein for Brazil and Latin America, Marcelo Claure, and the president of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), announced the start of national production by the Chinese company, still in July, at the Coteminas factory, in Macaíba (RN).

Carlos Alexandre Maske, CEO of the workers’ union, reports having heard from company representatives that part of the manufacturing unit will be used to fulfill the contract with Shein, but that this would be concentrated only in the processing sector.

This department is responsible for operations such as dyeing, drying and finishing fabrics. The problem for the workforce, Maske says, is that there are so few dedicated workers.

Until the beginning of the year, Coteminas in Blumenau had around 1,250 employees. The contingent has already decreased because, according to the president of Sintrafite, many workers left the company as the production level dropped and the company showed signs of difficulties.

In 2022, the factory practically did not produce, says the union president. The warning that the economic situation in the industry was bad came at the end of 2021, when the first delays in depositing the FGTS (Fund for the Guarantee of Length of Service) were identified by workers.

At the beginning of the following year, there was a layoff, which is the temporary suspension of contracts, a kind of break provided for by the CLT (Consolidation of Labor Laws). In 2023, employees in Blumenau went to the Labor Court to collect FGTS and salary deposits, which were paid 11 days late.

The factory installed in the Garcia industrial district has been operating since 1936, when it was still called Artex, producing mainly towels, comforters, sheets and pillowcases. During the pandemic, it produced masks. In 2001, Coteminas bought the complex.

At the meeting held on Monday, the workers decided to set up a commission to negotiate with the company. According to Maske, president of the union, the workers do not give up the suspension of layoffs and the full payment of severance pay. Even a demonstration in front of Fiesp is not ruled out.

Maske reports that at a first meeting called by the company, Coteminas representatives said they had identified around 300 workers interested in being dismissed. Another 200 could not be dismissed because they were on leave (such as sick pay or maternity leave).

“There is a group that really wants to leave the company because the situation is unsustainable. But these workers have to receive the compensation all at once”, says the president of Sintrafite.