Closure of the Saint-Affrique slaughterhouse: “The employer must pay its employees”, according to the sub-prefect of Millau

Depuis la mi-mars, le site de Saint-Affrique est fermé aux Cazes. Midi libre – J.-M. C.

The Saint-Affrique slaughterhouse, which reopened on October 16, saw its health approval withdrawn by the prefect on March 14. Employees have not received their March salary.

The Saint-Affrique slaughterhouse reopened on October 16 and had its health approval withdrawn by the prefect of Aveyron on March 14 for "absence of health control which leads to a proven risk for the health of consumers and the protection of animals in the context of their killing". Since then, the establishment has ceased its activity. Today, according to employees, there are 26 employees remaining out of the 48 at the restart. Salaries for March were not paid and balances from layoffs and contractual terminations were not fully paid.

"A list of expected improvements"

On Friday, twelve of them went to the gendarmerie to report the facts to the authorities (our edition of Sunday April 14). "The withdrawal of approval clearly sets out a list of improvements expected from the slaughterhouse, declares Véronique Martin Saint -Léon, sub-prefect of Millau. As soon as the slaughterhouse teams have provided a response to all of these observations in the context of a document that they will transmit to the veterinary services, the instruction will not be carried out these services. We undertake to discuss with the managers of the slaughterhouse in order to process these documents as quickly as possible to issue an approval decision, of course if the conditions are met. The ball is in their court, as I said a while ago."

"Never partial unemployment for non-compliance with regulations"

Concerning the payment of salaries, the sub-prefect explains that the principle of partial activity can allow financial support from the State in the event of loss of activity: "But this is never linked to non-compliance with regulations. There is never partial unemployment for non-compliance with regulations, it is the law. Also, as we are not in this framework, the State does not have to intervene. It is up to the employer to assume the consequences of non-compliance with the law and therefore to pay its employees accordingly. The labor inspectorate is obviously aware of this problem which must be resolved between the employer and employees. If this is not respected, the labor inspectorate is responsible and violations of labor law will be noted. I hope it doesn’t come to that."