Reuters reported that ArcelorMittal vowed on Friday to kick start a EUR 180 million, five year investment program at its Florange site in eastern France in the first quarter of 2013, seeking to allay union concerns over job cuts.
ArcelorMittal said in a statement that "The group's management calls on workers to construct with it a new phase in the history of Florange, which is destined to remain an important site for steelmaking in Europe.”
While ArcelorMittal said it would keep the two blast furnaces shuttered, it pledged to work with unions to reach a labor deal involving transfers to other jobs at the site, retirement packages and voluntary redundancies.
ArcelorMittal said that it would plough EUR 13 million into its nearby research centre of Maizieres-les-Metz in a bid to overcome the technical problems. A successful bid for EU funding would allow one of blast furnaces to be used in a pilot project.
The fate of Florange's two idled blast furnaces, which employ just over a quarter of the 2,000 metalworkers at Florange, has become a headache for France's Socialist government, which struck a deal last week with the company to avoid job cuts amid union pressure.
