ArcelorMittal's steel plant in Florange, France, will temporarily halt two production lines due to the slowdown of the automotive sector owing to the semiconductor crisis, the company management announced yesterday, October 26, specifying that the lines concerned are those that produce galvanized steels for the automotive sector. Galsa 1 will remain idled from October 28 until November 7, while Galsa 2, inaugurated just over a month ago, will stop operations on November 8-15 and then again on November 18-22. ArcelorMittal is also considering an additional shutdown of the plants on December 26 and 27.
The management said that maintenance will be carried out during the downtime and that the employees concerned - 400-500 people according to unions' estimations - will be invited to take vacations, to train, or to work on some secondary lines. Julien Walterspieler of the CFDT union said that some workers "will be able to strengthen the packaging sector, which is running very strongly at the moment."
However, according to Frédéric Weber of the Force Ouvrière union, it is possible that "the situation will continue at the beginning of next year, and that this will weigh on the period of the NAO (mandatory annual negotiations)."