The largest metallurgical plant in Ukraine stopped due to a workers' strike
The Arcelor Mittal Krivoy Rog mining and metallurgical plant (Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk region) announces the shutdown of most production facilities due to a strike by railway shop workers, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
This is stated in a message on the company’s website.
“Diesel locomotive drivers and their assistants, train compilers refused to go onto the line, thereby jeopardizing the work of the entire plant. This action was not announced and agreed upon in advance with the management of ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog PJSC,” it says.
At the moment, only 14 diesel locomotives out of 92 are used at the enterprise, and therefore the entire technological chain is paralyzed.
According to the report, divisions of the mining department, sintering shops, all blast furnaces (except the sixth), and all steelmaking and rolling processes have been completely stopped. The company notes that such unscheduled disruptions in the operation of production units have an extremely negative impact on the functioning of the gas transportation system.
“There is a real threat of gas pipeline explosions due to pressure changes, which could lead to a man-made disaster on the scale of not only the plant, but also the city. Currently, the company’s specialists are managing to keep the situation under control,” the press service reports.
Among the strikers' demands are an increase in wages to the European level of 1 euros and ensuring that all rolling stock meets labor safety standards.
The management of the enterprise held a number of meetings with the staff and on May 16, a special commission began inspecting the locomotives to determine their compliance with labor safety requirements.
Violations identified during inspections will be corrected, if possible, on site, by the company’s specialists.
Negotiations on salary increases continue.
“At the moment, Arcelor Mittal Krivoy Rog employs more than 21 people, the average salary is 000 hryvnia, it is competitive among enterprises of the mining and metallurgical complex of Ukraine. From May 14, the salary was increased to 000%,” the message says.
The report notes that if this situation cannot be resolved in the near future, production will be completely stopped, its restoration will take a long time, and enormous resources will have to be spent on this.
Let us remember that the enterprise is part of the “empire” of the metallurgical “king” Lakshmi Mittal, a transnational businessman of Indian origin.
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