The last products from the factory complex of the textile company “Benetton” in Niš will be released at the end of April, after which all the plants within that business complex will be closed, and 950 employees will be left without a job, the Beta agency learned from employees at that factory.
The employees said that they had suspected that the plant would close because the volume of production has been decreasing for months, and the company’s management officially confirmed this to them this week.
“Employees in one knitting factory, which operates under the name Benetton, were sent on paid leave this month because they have no work. The three plants of the company “Olimpijas Knitting” are currently working with all employees, but with a reduced volume of work,” said a worker who wished to remain anonymous.
According to her, the knitting plant of the company “Olimpijas Knitting” should operate until mid-March and then it will be closed, after which the ready-made clothing plant will be closed, and finally the plant where ready-made garments are made.
“We were told that the employer did everything to keep the factory afloat, but there is no work due to the economic crisis that has gripped the entire world, so factories are also shutting down in other countries. We were also told that we will be legally protected after the factory closes. Whether this means severance pay, we do not know for now,” said the Beta agency’s interlocutor.
She said that severance pay is what the workers are most interested in at the moment, if they are already out of work.
“We hope that the owner of the company will pay it to us because everything has been done according to the law so far. We received the minimum wage, but it was always on time. We also had a hot meal. At first it was 1,000 dinars, then they increased it to 2,000 dinars, and since last year it has been 3,000 dinars,” said the worker.
According to her, employees have already started asking about new jobs, but they will certainly have a hard time finding them, because the plants of the companies “Jura” and “Leoni” in Niš have also announced layoffs.
The Benetton company, which has been operating in Niš since 2011 in the plants of the former Niteks, has not yet officially announced the closure of the factory.
At the end of last year, the co-president of the “Niš, my city” party, Miodrag Stanković, announced that some “Benetton” plants were being closed and that 450 workers would be left without jobs, but Mayor Dragoslav Pavlović said at a session of the Niš City Assembly that this number was not accurate and that it was ten times smaller.
Pavlović also said at the time that the City of Niš would engage and help ensure that workers who lose their jobs at “Benetton” are employed in another plant, such as “Aster Textiles”.
