Day of anger at ArcelorMittal. Employees of the steelmaker’s French service centers are being called upon this Tuesday, November 26, to strike and block production at these sites which process steel. This movement at the call of an inter-union (CGT, CFDT, FO, CFE / CGC) follows the confirmation by the group, Monday, of the closure of its service centers in Reims (Marne) and Denain (North). ), which employ a total of 135 people. 113 employees work on the Reims site and 21 in Denain (North) and one in Ottmarsheim, details ArcelorMittal in a press release, confirming information relayed earlier in the day by the unions. This represents almost a quarter of the workforce in France of ArcelorMittal Service Centers, a subsidiary specializing in the wholesale trade of metals and minerals to businesses.
The steelmaker emphasizes that this project also provides “the creation of 19 jobs in other sites” and ensures to put “every effort is made to limit the impact on employment”. Management explains these job cuts by “a market down 30% since 2019” et “low-priced extra-European imports (which) unbalance the conditions of competition”.
“Production is planned to stop in June,” said the inter-union (CGT, FO, CFDT, CFE-CGC) in a press release published this Monday, at the end of a social and economic committee (CSE) in Reims. “For certain support functions, departures are planned from April”, she adds. According to this source, 19 reclassifications will be proposed in other sites. “Eight positions currently occupied by temporary staff will also be offered” within a site in Haute-Saône and “20 offers have been listed” for reclassifications within other entities of the group, the press release continues.
“The grief is really for the Denain site”regretted at the end of the CSE Benoît Jean-Leroy, CFDT union delegate from ArcelorMittal Reims. “Management reconfirmed to us today that the site is profitable”he indicated: “He’s making money, so there’s a way to save him, but they’re refusing any offers to buy.”
Pallet fire
Around a hundred employees mobilized at midday on Monday in front of the Reims site, upstream of the CSE. Employees in work clothes lit a pallet fire, while an ArcelorMittal locomotive, with its horn on, was moved onto the road, disrupting traffic. The inter-union calls on employees of the eight French sites of ArcelorMittal Service Centers to mobilize on Tuesday.
In Denain, they must be joined by around fifty members of the CGT of ArcelorMittal Dunkirk, where concern is growing after announcements made in recent days by the group and the government. ArcelorMittal asked the European Union this Monday to protect the competitiveness of European steel, putting in the balance its decarbonization projects on the continent, which involve several billion euros of investments.
This notably includes Dunkirk, where ArcelorMittal has decided “to postpone its investment in the decarbonization of the site”, according to the Minister Delegate in charge of Industry, Marc Ferracci.
Updated November 26 at 8 a.m.: ArcelorMittal confirms the job cuts, the inter-union calls for a strike.
Source: www.liberation.fr
