2023-12-05 20:44:24
This Tuesday, ArcelorMittal suspended the meeting called in Etxebarri with the unions to negotiate the cut of 440 jobs that the company intends to carry out in several plants in Spain. Most of the adjustment will be done at the Asturias facilities. The company justifies the job cuts by the upcoming replacement of the Gijón steel plant with a hybrid electric furnace within the decarbonization plans of the Asturian steel company. The postponement of the meeting was attributed to a last-minute agenda change. The session will be held next Wednesday, the 13th, and could last until Thursday.
The unions maintain the position that this is an excessive and disproportionate job cut. The Gijón steel plant employs just over 300 workers. The new facility will require fewer staff due to its greater automation and digitalization, and this may have an effect on other plants.
Since July 2021, it has been known that the partial decarbonization of the Gijón capital will lead to the elimination of 1,000 jobs. The 440 that are now proposed are linked to the first committed investment. The unions demand that the company approve the second and most expensive: the direct reduction iron ore (DRI) furnace to replace a blast furnace. The Government granted aid of 450 million for this plant, but the group has not yet approved it, which is happening in other manufacturing complexes in Germany, Belgium and France.
The unions demand this investment that would guarantee the integral future of the Asturian plants. And simultaneously they demand the application of the relief contract to satisfy the aspiration of the departure of personnel born in 1962 with the entry of replacement personnel, as has been done in recent decades to rejuvenate the workforce. But ArcelorMittal rules out this formula because it would imply maintaining the volume of employment when what it needs is to eliminate 20% of the workforce in Asturias (1,000 of 5,000 jobs) if it finally makes the DRI.
For CC OO, the relief contract is, he said, inalienable. UGT proposes to hire 100 people to improve the situation of the temporary group.
The elimination of 440 jobs will be carried out through an ERE of extinction with aid, it will affect those born in 1962 and 1963 and will be applied in the “Asturias Cluster”, which includes the Asturias, Sagunto, Etxebarri, Lesaka and Legasa factories. In Asturias the impact will be less than 400, although the figure (which will be the largest compared to other regions) has not been specified. Asturias concentrates 5,000 of Arcelor’s 8,000 jobs in Spain.
The hybrid electric furnace, which will be undertaken through the remodeling and adaptation of the current conventional steelworks in Gijón, will begin its civil work at the beginning of next year and the plant is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2025.
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