German steel group’s offer to workers for Tata deal

IN A bid to get union backing for its deal with Tata Steel, workers at Thyssenkrupp have been offered commitments on jobs and investments.

The details of the offer are set for discussion at a meeting of management and labour representatives on Tuesday, sources close to labour union IG Metall told Reuters yesterday.

The German industrial group Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel agreed in September to merge their European steel operations, creating the continent’s secondlargest steelmaker.

But workers at Thyssenkrupp fiercely oppose the deal.

The new company, which will be called ThyssenKrupp Tata Steel, will have a combined workforce of around 48,000.

The merger is expected to deliver annual cost savings of around of more than £530m.

Four thousand jobs are expected to go, 2,000 from the production side and 2,000 from administration, with the losses evenly split between Tata in Europe and ThyssenKrupp.

IG Metall has demanded 10-year guarantees for jobs, plants and investments and has set a deadline of December 22 for an agreement.

German weekly Bild am Sonntag had on Sunday cited the Thyssenkrupp personnel chief Oliver Burkhard as saying in an internal memo that the industrial group was prepared to make commitments on future investments and job security.

“With our proposal, we want to secure jobs at the future joint venture into the next decade,” it had quoted him as saying.

Chief executive Heinrich Hiesinger hopes to reach a final deal with Tata in early 2018 but that depends on whether he can get it passed by Thyssenkrupp’s supervisory board, where labour leaders hold half of the seats.

“If the employer’s side wants to move forward now, then that’s a signal to which we will respond,” Knut Giesler, the head of IG Metall in the state of North RhineWestphalia said.

Thyssenkrupp has offered workers to get union backing for its deal with Tata Steel to merge their European steel operations, several people said.

Last month Tata Steel revealed a £30m investment at its Port Talbot plant. The money will go on a replacement 500-tonne vessel at the Port Talbot steelworks – one of several investments the company said it would be making at its UK sites.