The committee has warned that this stop would mean the dismissal of more than 70 temporary workers.
The committee of the Compact Steelworks of Bizkaia (ACB) has denounced the stoppage of production at the Biscayan plant indefinitely in the coming weeks, despite currently presenting “considerable profit margins” at Sestao, due to its rejection of “organizational modifications” raised by the company.
The union sections UGT, CCOO, LAB and ELA, components of the Arcelor Mittal Sestao Works Council, have expressed their “total rejection” of the causes alleged by the company to justify the shutdown of the facility, which lead to “the dismissal of more than 70 temporary workers“.
As they have indicated, the Company Management has informed them of the production stop in the coming weeks, motivated “exclusively by the rejection of the Company Committee of the proposed organizational modifications in the current maintenance model”, changes that the Committee rejects for security reasons”.
As a result of the refusal of the Committee and taking advantage of the “helplessness and uneasiness that a stop of these characteristics exerts on the workers”, the committee has accused the management of the ACB of “blackmailing the social part, making it a condition to resume the production in Sestao, the acceptance of the organizational changes proposed unilaterally, as well as the revision of some points of the Agreement that cover the intended organizational changes “.
In case of not accepting this proposal, as they have indicated, the management “threatens to continue with the layoffs, to block the departure of pre-retirement workers and not to ensure the start-up of the Plant in January.”
In addition, they have reproached that “in order to increase profits, given the strong demand for steel, the multinational has begun to divert production to other production centers, where the impact of energy costs is less.”
Therefore, the Committee has appealed, once again, to dialogue and has invited the Management of Arcelor Mittal Sestao to keep trading to find an agreed exit.
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