The plant stopped production on December 7 to undertake maintenance work, which has taken “longer than expected,” according to the company. For the unions it is “a jug of cold water” since there is no date for the return; in addition, temporary workers will be laid off.
Plant ArcelorMittal Sestao, which stopped its production on December 7 to undertake maintenance work and remodel the second continuous casting line, will not resume productive activity in January as planned and is postponed to February.
The management of the ArcelorMittal Sestao plant has informed the works council that the factory “will not resume production” at the beginning of January due to high energy costs, according have informed EFE union sources.
In a meeting held this past Wednesday, the plant management presented the unions with a work schedule with three teams, instead of the usual five, because the company had decided “not to start the plant” due to the transformation costs and reported that it had not foreseen a start-up date.
The same sources have ensured that this Thursday the direction of the plant has begun to “communicate the dismissal” to approximately one hundred temporary workers and that production is being “transferred” to other plants of the group in Spain.
For its part, business has indicated that the start-up has been “delayed” because the remodeling work on the second line will take “a little longer than expected” and that according to the “latest planning” made by the company, the Sestao plant could “start in February”.
Has ensured that the energy market situation “does not help”, but that “is not the main cause” of the delay in the start-up of the plant, although “it is an aspect that the management takes into account when postponing or delaying the start-up to February.”
“We will have to see how the situation is in January, but today the idea is to be able to start again in February”, they assure from ArcelorMittal.
The company has between 50 and 60 workers, all of them temporary employment agencies, who are going to be informed that “the contract will not be kept” and that they are “counted on to start up” the plant. .
The workers will continue in January with the maintenance and fine-tuning of the second continuous casting line, as well as with training “oriented” to the “new way of working” that will involve having two continuous casting lines and two ovens.
Union sources have considered a “jug of cold water” the company’s announcement and that they have not been given a date to re-produce.
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