Group of investors is interested in Tupperware, says mayor. Company postpones closure in Portugal

It’s the coat that gives her away. In it, the Tupperware logo lets you know that you are an employee of the company. He is at the door of a cafe in the parish of Montalvo, talking to an acquaintance. He takes out a cigarette and explains that he just left the company, where he worked another early shift.

“We don’t know anything about the future, but I don’t want to talk about it”, says Helena, while taking another hit of his cigarette.

She explains that, like her, all of the company’s approximately 200 direct workers, based in Montalvo, a few kilometers from Constância, “are worried about the future”.

“It’s complicated for the approximately 50 people” from the parish who work at the company, explains Ana Manique, president of the Montalvo Parish Council, who leaves the café in the meantime.

Those who work there have dealt with the situation “with some impatience, of course, because there are many uncertainties”, says the mayor. “But with some hope from what we’ve heard, that there will be investors and that maybe it won’t close.”

Still leaning against the corner of the cafe, smoking her cigarette, Helena sighs. Much progress has been made about the future, but certainties, only tomorrow, eventually, when the workers meet with the company’s management in Portugal. “The mayor and I”, assures Ana Manique, “we have always been trying to talk to the management, but they themselves are a bit closed and reluctant to bring the information out.”

“A house can be very big, but it takes just a moment to fall”

Fernanda Morais arrives at the café, a destination for everyone at that hour, still twilight, for the first caffeine of the morning and fresh bread at home. He worked at Tupperware for 35 years and, a few years ago, was given a severance package to leave. The news that has arrived “is bad, very bad”.

“They are bad for us, here, and for those who work there and are from other municipalities”, he says, remembering that when he left, he still received compensation. “I have a 43-year-old son there, who has an 11-year-old daughter, and he will probably leave and bring nothing back”, laments Fernanda, who admits that the possible closure would be worse if it had been a few years ago.

“A lot of couples worked there. Not anymore. But there were a lot of couples. The same family. And a lot of people worked there from Montalvo.” Fernanda Morais also remembers what, in the past, was heard about “embezzlement, this and that”.

“A house can be very big, but it takes just a moment to fall”, she concludes, as she says goodbye, claiming, in a joking tone, that it’s better to go back, in case her husband wakes up and thinks she’s run away from home.

Meeting between workers and management on Thursday

The mayor of Constância has been in a rush in recent days. Especially with requests from the media to speak out on the matter. He admits that he is sad about the whole situation, because between direct and indirect jobs, there are around 400 people and families who will see their lives at a standstill.

“That’s what, as mayor, worries me: having people who will remain unemployed. The majority are young enough to retire, but are too old to find another job opportunity”, explains Sérgio Oliveira, who guarantees, “within the competences of the chamber”, all the support to the residents affected by the possible closure of Tupperware.

Furthermore, he indicates that he has maintained contact with the State Secretariat of Economy and AICEP: “We asked that, through the Ministry of Labor, it be ensured that all people’s rights are respected. So that workers who have been there for 30 or 35 years old don’t leave there with one hand in front and one behind.”

Of the official entities, the Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economy, the mayor says he received “the guarantee that they will do everything to ensure that things are respected”.

For Thursday A meeting is planned between the workers and the company’s management, in which the interest expressed by a group of investors in the company’s continuity may be discussed.

“I know that there is this group of investors and this interest, expressed with the parent company in the United States”, says the mayor, who emphasizes, however, that does not want to be “creating false expectations in people”, explains Sérgio Oliveira. “No decision has been made, but it could be a solution for maintaining the manufacturing unit. But today I’m not sure that this will come to fruition.”

Source: rr.sapo.pt