French President Nicolas Sarkozy visits the Tarbes
site
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He arrived at Tarbes a little before noon for a one-hour
visit to the Alstom site, accompanied by Patrick Kron, CEO of
Alstom, Xavier Bertrand, Minister of Labour and Valerie Letard,
Secretary of State for Solidarity, and was welcomed by Thierry
Darthout, manager of the Tarbes facility.
The President was introduced to three Alstom employees with
disabilities and a number of disabled people in sheltered
employment with an Alstom subcontractor producing cable
harnesses.
"I would like all French companies to make this kind of
effort," he told the assembled journalists and hundreds of
Alstom employees.
Alstom Tarbes is a Centre Of Excellence for power converters
and traction systems. 7.74% of the staff at the Tarbes site
have disabilities – well above the 6% target.
Revenue spent by the site in Tarbes in sheltered employment
amounted to €220,000 for fiscal year 2007-08, against an
initial target of €110,000. In the past few months, one
disabled person has been recruited for a permanent contract,
six have been hired as temporary staff and one has been awarded
an apprenticeship contract, while Alstom has accounted for the
equivalent of six subcontracted positions in the sheltered
sector. Action has been taken to help 10 disabled people
continue in their jobs.
Practical efforts have also been made onsite: workstations have
been fitted with adapted IT equipment and chairs, the company
has helped to purchase equipment (a wheelchair) and modify the
vehicle of a wheelchair-bound employee, and awareness has been
heightened among site managers, who have been trained in
providing for disabled workers.
In 2006, Alstom Transport France signed a three-year agreement
focusing on four different aspects of disability. A number of
initiatives were introduced over the following year in order
to:
- Promote the hiring of disabled workers.
- Help disabled staff to continue in their jobs by fitting out
workstations and providing access ramps, lifts and special
toilets.
- Develop partnerships with businesses in the sheltered sector.
- Provide information and training for the entire workforce: an
information leaflet, displays onsite, talks by company doctors
and the introduction of training programmes.
Efforts will be ongoing, particularly with regard to recruiting
one disabled employee per site per year.