Frankfurt am Main – The board of IG Metall dealt in detail with the current situation at thyssenkrupp at its meeting yesterday, Monday afternoon. The members of the 34-member management board are deeply concerned about the latest developments, in particular about the resignation of their supervisory board mandates by Sigmar Gabriel and Elke Eller on the grounds that a trusting cooperation with the board of directors of thyssenkrupp AG is no longer possible.
“The upcoming restructuring, the planned independence and the green transformation must not be carried out at the expense of the 27,000 employees in the steel sector,” said the first chairwoman of IG Metall, Christiane Benner, after the board meeting in Frankfurt am Main. “We call on the federal government and the state government in North Rhine-Westphalia to claim the two vacant supervisory board mandates for the state and federal government.” This is necessary in order to ensure a transparent and fair sharing of burdens between thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG and the parent company, thyssenkrupp AG. ensure.
Since the state and federal government are investing two billion euros in tax money in the green transformation at thyssenkrupp, IG Metall is convinced that such a step is legitimate and understandable. All the more so since the new co-partner, Daniel Kretinsky, also received two seats on the supervisory board for his investment amounting to a low three-digit million amount.
IG Metall fears that the public dismantling of the steel board and the associated resignation of the external supervisory board members was deliberately brought about in order to fill the central positions of chairman of the board and chairman of the supervisory board for the steel division with followers of the AG board – to the detriment of jobs and of employees in the steelworks.
“Transparency, equality and appreciation of employees must become the standard again in thyssenkrupp’s co-determination committees,” demands Benner. “Anyone who tries to push back co-determination must expect bitter resistance from IG Metall. A company cannot be run against the employees.”
She called on the chairman of the board, Miguel Lopez, and the chairman of the supervisory board, Siegfried Russwurm, to enter into dialogue with the employees again and to develop solutions for steel together with co-determination, their representatives and committees.