Responsible restructuring in Morocco

Interview with Mohamed Lasry, President of STMicroelectronics in Morocco and three local employee representatives

Mohamed Lasry and Joseph de Fombelle, General Manager Bouskoura Site

When market conditions obliged ST to plan for restructuring activities in 2006, one of the options that was considered and put forward was the closure of a unit called Subsystems Product Group (SPG) dedicated to the design and production of chips for electronic cards, telepass for motorways, flash memories and similar products. SPG was located in Casablanca, Morocco, close to ST’s larger production site at Bouskoura, and one of the reasons why it had been identified for closure was that its activity was quite different from ST’s core business.

ST’s first action was to look for a buyer for SPG. When a buyer for the activity could not be found, the focus was on finding a different solution. At the start those involved didn’t realize quite how hard it was going to be and that the process would take them over a year to manage. The strong commitment of all parties involved – local management, employee representatives and employees – to trust each other and work together to find a responsible solution was what made it possible to come through the trauma of restructuring with the least possible impact.

Mohamed Lasry, President of STMicroelectronics, Morocco explains, ‘It was a very difficult time. When the news came, people suffered a lot and were in shock, but they said nothing. For them, the emotional attachment to ST as a family was very strong. It goes beyond work. But the commitment from ST was to save jobs and do things properly. The first prospect we faced when a buyer could not be found was the closure of SPG. But then, the solution proposed was to integrate SPG into our Bouskoura site and to reduce the number of employees by offering the possibility to leave ST with financial compensation.

There were periods over the course of the year where the discussion sessions with employee representatives went on into the night in very difficult conditions; the talks could have broken down at any moment. Both employee representatives and local management worked hard during the negotiations, to hold everything together and find a solution. Not the best solution, but the least bad. Despite all the difficulties and the enormous tension and uncertainty that everyone was living with during that period there was never any violence or strikes. It could have been different. But there was the trust, the belief and the desire to fight to save our people’s jobs.

The employee representatives, who were freely elected by SPG employees before the restructuring began, share their perspective: local management kept everyone going. People were asking, “What will become of us, will we be sold or transferred? We want to stay with ST”. They made it possible to communicate the message, to stay with us until the end, every employee. At the local level there was transparency and perseverance.

There was a responsible behavior on the part of everyone, to think of the interests of everyone, to find a consensus with the top management. There were problems in communication, it’s true. The hardest part was the announcement and then the rumours without knowing, and the constant change of decision. But the idea was to put things in context and find a solution.

At times our credibility as delegates was in doubt. But our strength was to always come back to the employees, all of them, in small groups. That required lots of energy, and throughout that time no delivery was delayed, no lines were down and everyone carried on with their jobs even in peak times. Employees showed great loyalty.

One of the challenges we faced was to save the reputation of ST in Morocco. This was difficult because the company was surrounded by stakeholders, for example suppliers and subcontractors. People knew that SPG was going to close and that also had to be managed.

What are the lessons learned from this experience on all sides? “Honesty and dedication. It is most important to communicate and collaborate – not to be in a hard position but to be flexible and embrace dialogue.”

Atika Salaheddine, Saadia Bamadoud and Abdellah Akrim, local employee representatives, Bouskoura site at Morocco