ArcelorMittal Galati, Romania-based subsidiary of the world's largest integrated metals and mining company ArcelorMittal, has decided that from April 1 to July 1, 2009, all its 12,500 workers will be sent on technical unemployment, due to the continuous downtrend of the steel market during the current time of crisis.
Accordingly, during the period in question, the workers will be divided into six groups of 2,000 persons, and each group will in turn be sent on technical unemployment for ten days at a time over the next three months. In addition, the workers are to be paid 75 percent of their salaries and to receive their bonuses for length of service, while other rights stipulated in the collective working contract are to be annulled.
Moreover, according to the trade union leader Gheorghe Tiber, it is possible that after the three-month period, the workers may be forced to take a mandatory ten-day leave out of their holidays for 2010, unless production recoups.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, on December 12, 2008, ArcelorMittal Galati unveiled a voluntary layoff scheme, effective through March 31, according to which up to 2012 the plant's staff will be reduced to 10,000. Currently, around 1,600 workers have signed up for voluntary leave, after another 1,100 steel workers had left the plant in January 1-March 1, 2009.
In addition, ArcelorMittal Galati is to run a structured reorganization program in all sectors, aimed to reduce losses and costs and improve production efficiency.
In 2009, ArcelorMittal Galati expects to produce a maximum 1.5 million mt of steel, increasing its output to three million mt per year in 2010-2012. In 2007, the plant produced 4.4 million mt of crude steel.