Kering's Italian employees are on strike «The crisis cannot be passed on to the people,» the unions protest
The closure of stores and the focus on tailoring
Last April, Kering’s financial results showed a rather critical situation: while Gucci is moving toward a slow recovery, the other brands in the French conglomerate are still struggling, especially McQueen.
The plan by CEO Luca de Meo for Kering (called ReconKering) is precisely to focus everything on Gucci for the company’s relaunch, on jewelry with the launch of a dedicated division, and on “pruning” the less stable brands. For McQueen, the CEO has presented a strategy that will refocus on womenswear rather than its more commercial products, in order to elevate its perception. This also means closing several stores of the brand: more than half worldwide by 2026, according to the ReconKering presented by de Meo in April.
Kering's response
Faced with this morning’s strikes, with unions calling not only for social safety nets but also for greater responsibility from the group, Kering says it will not change anything in the plan recently launched, although it remains open to dialogue. Defending ReconKering and the restructuring of McQueen, which over the past week has contributed to a slight rise in Kering’s stock price, the group is trying to address the crisis without taking its employees into consideration. To see what the results of these strikes will be, we will likely have to wait until early June, when a new meeting between the company and union representatives will take place.