Spain: day laborers "shake" in front of new strategic plan

Movements in the dome usually involve tremor at the base . This is what happens in Dia where workers nervously wait to know what will be the next steps of the business.

A feeling of unease that has grown over the last week, about all this as a result of Dia's announcement of lowering its growth forecasts. In addition, the supermarket chain announced that it would be one of LetterOne's advisors, Stephan DuCharme who serves as Acting President when Ana María Llopis leaves office on 31 December. [19659004] Changes that, although it does not appear that they will change the staff – at least for the moment – do not rebadure employees who want to know and what are the intentions of the first shareholder of the company Mikhail Fridman and his trusted men.

That does not escape him for the chain. That's why he met just a month ago with employee representatives. The message: strategic plan and calm . A plan that will be presented between this month and the next and which will mark the lines in which the chain will be moved under the direction of August Antonio Coto .

"Whenever they talk about strategy we start to tremble ," trade union sources report this newspaper. "We all know hearsay, but we have not seen in practice what Coto's plans are," they insist.

"It's the market and you have to face the competition"

The Dia workers are not close to the changes far from it, but they want to know how they're going affect them and when they can know them. "The shops sell, and they badure us that the workers will not be affected," the paper told other employees, who insist that if the plan is to modernize the channel, everything will be fine: " This is the market and you have to compete. "

And this does not seem like a bad bet to them by the format Dia & Go, the convenience stores with which the group is already working in Spain , and who are already more than a hundred. The workers are sincere: " Everyone wants to be there ." Because? "They work very well, there are more workers and the facilities are more modern," they explain.

"We expect what they count in the plan whether it's called Pepe or Juan who sends, we do not care," the employees joke. Something similar should be to think investors, who have punished the stock markets since Monday, publicly announced the reduction of their growth forecasts and suspended the dividend this year. On the same day, the company left 42.2% of its value, a share of 1.10 euros. This Wednesday was still down and rose at the end of the day to 85 cents or 15% less.

The only news known to date concerns senior management. That same Wednesday, Dia announced changes in organizational structure, pushed by Antonio Coto, with the aim of ending the collapse of the stock market. has not yet clarified his situation with the financial director Amando Sánchez Falcón, suspended from his work and his salary since the company revised its forecasts on Monday.

that of trying to raise the situation in which supermarkets are, that is to say, it gained 37% less in the last financial year, and for that it must be able to count on the support of employees. Not in vain, Dia has about 4,800 stores in Spain, which operate under the brands Dia, Plaza de Dia, Clarel and, now, Dia & Go. Of all, there were around 27,000 workers at the end of the year.