Leche Pascual has formally launched an expediente de regulación de empleo (ERE) affecting all 80 employees at its Gurb dairy facility in Barcelona province. The move comes just months after Casa Tarradellas announced plans to acquire the plant and convert it for mozzarella production. The transition now faces job insecurity and unresolved negotiations.
The Gurb site is scheduled to close on July 31, when Casa Tarradellas will take over operations. Despite initial assurances of continuity and individual job offers, talks between Leche Pascual and the workforce have not secured collective guarantees. Workers, represented by the Col·lectiu Ronda legal cooperative, remain skeptical about their prospects under the new owner, particularly because no binding group offer has been made.
Casa Tarradellas is a major food group headquartered in Gurb. A company profile published by El Nacional on August 14, 2025, reported revenue of €1.5 billion and a workforce of 3,158 employees, up 7%. Those figures show the scale of the local food-production business, while the employment question at the former Pascual plant remains basic to negotiations.
Col·lectiu Ronda says the ERE lacks genuine economic or productive justification. The Gurb plant reportedly posted strong profitability and output in the previous year, contradicting claims that it was unviable. Worker representatives argue that Leche Pascual is shutting down a successful operation to shift production elsewhere, particularly to its facilities in Burgos. The shift had become apparent months earlier, as machinery and production lines moved gradually from Gurb to Burgos.
The plant opened in 2004 after an investment exceeding €70 million, but activity there has steadily declined. Employees criticize Leche Pascual for waiting until most operations had wound down before starting negotiations. They accuse the company of fostering vague hopes that Casa Tarradellas would hire the existing team. In recent months, Leche Pascual has also dismissed several workers individually, which staff see as a sign of reluctance to negotiate collectively. Eight employees were recently reinstated after disputes over the dismissals.
Leche Pascual confirmed the ERE filing in a statement, saying it had explored all alternatives for continuity and aimed to protect jobs and provide certainty. It said Casa Tarradellas had made individual employment offers matching current pay and seniority, but the workforce had so far declined them and still had time to reconsider. The company also cited respect for a recent works council election as a reason for delaying the ERE process.
Negotiations over the ERE begin immediately. Leche Pascual says it is willing to engage in dialogue to secure the best possible outcome for affected staff and ensure a smooth transition. The basic unresolved issue is whether Casa Tarradellas will absorb all or only some of the workforce; no collective agreement has been reached.
The plant and its access infrastructure are also part of local planning in Gurb. El 9 Nou reported planned improvement works at the Pascual junction, expected to take eight months and be completed by summer. The site is so part of an active period of local infrastructure work.
The development in Gurb reflects ongoing tensions in Spain's industrial sector, where plant closures and workforce reductions often trigger disputes over the validity of economic grounds and the adequacy of transition measures. It also echoes wider debates about employment protections and company obligations, including recent cases such as the controversy over collaborator status in Zaragoza's mask procurement, covered in this report on legal uncertainties in public sector contracts.
Spain's ERE structure allows collective dismissals on economic, technical, organizational or production grounds. The general statutory thresholds are calculated over a 90-day period: 10 affected employees for employers with fewer than 100 workers, 10% of the workforce for employers with 100 to 300, and 30 employees for employers with more than 300. The 80 workers at the Gurb plant are affected by this filing; the applicable threshold depends on the relevant employer's workforce. Negotiations with worker representatives are basic to the process. The outcome in Gurb may inform similar transitions in the food industry as consolidation and automation reshape the sector. It also shows why timely negotiations and clear communication matter during major operational changes.
