“Yes, sir, this is the best car I’ve helped build so far. I would buy one, but I do not have enough money,” says one of Dacia’s employees working at the assembly line for the new Dacia Logan model, which was officially presented by the Romanian carmaker on Thursday.
Indeed, at 150 euros, the current average salary offered by Dacia, the company’s employees cannot afford to buy the new model they are producing, not even through the hire purchase system. Moreover, now, employees can no longer go home carrying a spare part or accessory that they can subsequently sell, as they used to several years ago. “The arrival of the French has put an end to theft from the plant. Security guards are everywhere and everybody is rigorously checked up on exit. Under these circumstances, nobody entertains the thought of taking some spare parts with them when leaving any longer,” says one of the few employees I met on the alleys between the various sections of the platform and who was willing to talk about this. It is from him that I also found out the reason why the other employees were not too talkative. “They are all scared because rumour has it that starting this autumn, when the French become full owners, massive layoffs will be operated and out of 12,000 employees, only 6,000-7,000 employees will be kept”.
The industrial manager of Dacia, Simon Valin, denies this. “It is difficult to predict what will happen in the future with Dacia as regards its personnel. Analyses per sector will be performed and a certain number of layoffs are possible, especially within the administrative sector. Moreover, personnel from the sectors that are currently overstaffed, might be transferred to those sectors that would need it,” Valin says.
At the end of last year, Dacia had 12,800 employees, as compared to the 27,500 registered at the moment Renault became a shareholder in the company in 1999. These may produce as much as 200,000-210,000 Dacia Logan units in 2010 and 150,000 CKD collections, to be exported to Iran or Russia to be assembled.
Besides higher productivity of employees, the quality of the new product is also superior as compared to several years ago, say Dacia officials. “Logan is the first car where we will no longer use the hammer to make little necessary adjustments,” said the guide who gave us a tour of the general assembly section, where some workers were performing the final checks on the Logan model.
ionut.bonoiu@zf.ro