The management of AcerlorMittal and the unions have agreed on Wednesday the application of a Temporary Employment Regulation File (ERTE), in principle of six months and that will affect some 7,000 workers, due to the fire that occurred in the blast furnace A of the plant from Gijon. An incident that has caused the paralysis of the facilities. The agreement, as reported by union sources consulted by EFE, establishes economic guarantees of 90% of gross salary and all extra payments and vacations for those affected by the ERTE.
Specifically, among those affected are the workers of the so-called Asturias cluster, which includes the Gijón and Avilés plants, as well as those of Sagunto (Valencia), Etxebarri (Vizcaya) and Leska (Navarra). UGT has assured that it accepts the company’s proposal “as long as the same economic conditions agreed in the previous file are scrupulously respected.” In any case, the union has requested a written commitment from the management of the furnace repair as well as setting a time limit for the validity of the erte
For its part, Comisiones Obreras has expressed the need to clarify a more defined time limit of the erte and has requested the same guarantees as those agreed in the last file of 2022, which expired in March.
On March 22, a fire broke out in the blast furnace A in Gijón, where the company has two facilities of this type, whose useful life was scheduled until 2025 and which had resumed its activity on February 6 after being stopped. since the end of September due to the contraction in demand for steel products. ArcelorMittal presented in July 2021 a decarbonization plan for its electric arc production.
The European Commission already gave the green light in February to Spanish state aid of 460 million euros, authorized on April 4 by the Council of Ministers, for a project that would have an investment of 1,000 million euros and is still pending approval. definitively by the steel multinational.
In parallel, the management of ArcelorMittal and the unions are keeping talks open to conclude the VIII Framework Agreement that will affect the 8,300 workers of its once plants in Spain. The company has proposed a retroactive salary increase for 2022 of 4% and a non-consolidation pay of 1.7%, while the increase would be 3% for this year and 2.5% for 2024 and 2025. Something that it has not been well received by the union forces that have already called a 24-hour strike for April 24 and another 16-hour strike for April 28.
