Damen Mangalia Lays Off 200 Workers, 1,000 on Technical Unemployment

Over 200 employees of the insolvent Damen Mangalia Shipyard will be laid off starting February 28, and for almost all the other employees of the company, over a thousand, technical unemployment has been extended until May 31, Laurenţiu Gobeajă, leader of the Navalistul Union.

According to him, the union members have made repeated requests to the central authorities to find solutions for resuming activity and exiting insolvency, but “it seems that the existing blockage continues, a situation that has been dragging on for a year and a half, without evolving in any direction.”

At the Mangalia shipyard, the Romanian state is the majority shareholder with 51%, and the Dutch company Damen has 49% of the shares. “The situation seems to be continuing in the same way as before, we are not evolving in any direction.  From the outside, it seems, in the absence of clear information from the decision-makers, that the two shareholders have not reached an agreement, except perhaps in principle that they must cede the association contract, but the way in which this association contract will end and how much Damen’s exit from this business will cost is unknown to all of us. And we would not be particularly interested in the value of the respective amounts, the important thing is that it happens as soon as possible. But it seems that there is still a blockage, the two shareholders are not saying anything about what they are discussing, they only say that they are discussing. But they have been telling us this for a year and a half”, the unionist said.

He stated that over 200 employees will lose their jobs starting February 28, although, after the last protest rally in the capital by construction site workers, the Minister of Economy, Bogdan Ivan, announced that he would ask the judicial administrator to postpone the layoffs.

Regarding the over a thousand employees on technical unemployment, the site administrator announced that the respective period would be extended until May 31, Gobeajă specified.

“The dismissal decisions were issued and have not been canceled, February 27 will be the last day of notice, February 28 is the first day, effectively, of termination of employment relationships, practically the contract is terminated. People will become unemployed, because the reason for which the contract is terminated is for reasons not attributable to the employees, being a restructuring and a abolition of positions. These employees also hoped, after the protest on February 7, that what the Minister of Economy said was true, but … nothing concrete”, Gobeajă also said.

Damen Mangalia unionists threaten protest in the Netherlands

In an open letter, the Navalistul union requested the support of the Dutch Embassy so that “Damen Holding BV assumes its responsibility as shareholder and owner of the operational management of the largest shipyard in Romania and intervenes urgently for its recovery”.

“Today (February 25 – editor’s note), we received a response from the embassy. They told us that they feel empathy for us, but that they cannot intervene. Although the ambassador has participated in all the ceremonies organized by the Damen group in Romania, in all kinds of ship launches, in discussions between the company’s representatives and those of the Romanian state, she tells us that she cannot intervene”, declared the union leader, referring to the response received from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Romania.

The unionists want to organize a protest action in front of the embassy on March 7 and, “if nothing changes for the better”, a delegation of the shipyard’s employees intends to travel to the Netherlands to picket the headquarters of the Damen company.

The unionist claims that the shipyard has reached this situation due to tensions between the two shareholders, because “each one thought they could outwit the other”.

“All the tensions year after year between the two shareholders led to this outcome. Because they did not effectively understand each other, they could not work together, each one thought they could outwit the other. A business partnership cannot continue when both partners do not trust each other and when neither one wants to continue together. But they are, in fact, separated, but together, the ‘chain of love’ has not been broken, they still own the block of shares”, said Gobeajă.

In 2023, the Damen group announced that it had issued a notice of termination of the association agreement concluded in 2018 between Damen Holding BV and the Romanian state, because “through the adoption of Law no. 187/2023, the legal framework on the basis of which the association between the Romanian state and Damen operated with regard to the Mangalia Shipyard was annulled.”