The Department of Business and Labor has rejected Freixent’s ERTE request due to force majeure due to the drought. The department headed by Roger Torrent considers that the elements of unpredictability and inevitability that would justify such a measure do not exist “clearly.” The cava leader had requested the temporary employment regulation file for up to 615 people starting in May because the lack of water has reduced grape production by more than a third.
In any case, department sources point out that there are other ERTE options, such as ETOP, due to economic, technical, organizational or productive circumstances. This will be the path that Freixenet will now follow. The company has confirmed that it will continue with negotiations on the file with the works council and the unions, although it maintains that the circumstances why it has resorted to such a mechanism remain in force. “The Government’s response triggers a request for an ERTE for economic, technical, organizational or production reasons (ERTE ETOP). This mechanism developed by the Government of the Generalitat aims to protect employment,” Freixenet emphasizes.
There are two elements that justify ERTE due to force majeure, as explained by Empresa i Treball: unpredictability and inevitability. Ordinary force majeure acts in the event of events that cannot be foreseen or avoided, such as fires or explosions, among others, that completely or partially cancel the work center or that do not allow the activity. This is what happened during the covid pandemic, when a large number of companies took advantage of the ERTE due to force majeure.
Regarding whether the lack of grapes was foreseeable, the Generalitat assesses that the situation of dry farming, such as vines, and the lack of rain is not something unexpected, since Catalonia has been suffering a water crisis for three years. The other six temporary regulation files due to force majeure due to the drought that the department has estimated, all of them were linked to the restrictions on water use decreed by the Government.
The CC.OO union. had rejected the ERTE due to force majeure and had asked Freixenet for a meeting to find alternative solutions that do not involve the temporary suspension of jobs. UGT de Catalunya has also opposed the ERTE. “There are no causes that prove in any case” its presentation, they commented this last weekend. The unions consider that the current drought situation is not unexpected.
For its part, the company emphasizes that the serious lack of grapes and base wine for the production of cava leads “to a massive reduction of work in the production processes”. “This is a consequence of the extreme drought in the regions of Alt Penedès, Baix Penedès, El Garraf and Camp de Tarragona,” he adds.
Since then, together with other cava producers, unions and winegrowers, Freixenet has been urging the D.O. to update regulations and adopt measures to counteract the tense supply situation. “Although the D.O. approved extraordinary measures for the next harvest in mid-April, these are not enough nor do they arrive in time to avoid an ERTE,” they point out. The drought, they insist, has already accumulated a deficit equivalent to 80 million bottles in the cava sector.
