Mülheim and Düsseldorf: Vallourec wants to close plants in 2023

The board of directors of the French steel tube group Vallourec has declared the search for an investor for its two German plants in Mülheim-Dümpten and Düsseldorf-Rath to be over. The factories should close. 2400 employees are foreseeable on the street.

Came to the quarterly balance sheet and after the stock market closed the dreaded news for the workforce. At 6:22 p.m. Vallourec announced that it would “initiate the closure process for its two plants in North Rhine-Westphalia”. Production should be stopped at the end of 2023, it said.

Vallourec works in Düsseldorf and Mülheim: sale failed

Vallourec initially put his works up for sale in November 2021. Now, half a year later, it is said that none of the offers presented showed a sustainable future security for the production sites. As is well known, three financial investors were still in the running. However, as word had spread, they are said not to have offered any money for the takeover of the works. The interested parties are said to have demanded hundreds of millions of euros from Vallourec, because company pensions and costly company agreements would have had to be taken over.

“We are aware that the intended closure represents a deep cut for the employees affected and their families,” said Philippe Guillemot, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the Vallourec Group, in the evening. He ruled out the possibility of the German companies continuing under their own roof: “For economic reasons, the production of seamless steel tubes is no longer feasible for us in Germany.”

Vallourec-Werke recently lost 700 million euros

Vallourec Germany mainly produces seamless steel tubes for the oil and gas market as well as industrial applications in machine and steel construction and has been making high losses for seven years – losses of 700 million euros have been incurred since 2015. According to Vallourec, the reasons for this are “overcapacities in the industry, falling margins, but also external shocks such as various oil crises, punitive tariffs from China, the Corona crisis and the war in Ukraine started by Russia with dramatic effects on raw material and energy prices”.

Employee representatives have complained in the past With the construction of a production facility in Brazil, the group has withdrawn the lucrative business from Germany itself and invested too little in future markets.

Chairman of the Board of Directors: Competitiveness cannot be achieved

Vallourec referred to the numerous restructuring measures in the recent past, such as the closure of the pipe plant in Düsseldorf-Reisholz in 2020, a workforce reduction of around 1,400 employees since 2015 and several austerity and restructuring programs. Despite all efforts, cost-covering operation of the German locations is still not possible.

The situation in the renewable energies product area will not improve significantly either, as in Germany the share of sales in this area is currently only one percent and according to forecasts, the turnover will increase to a maximum of ten percent in five years, it said on a concept that the employee side had presented for the future of the plants with external specialist advice. Those considerations, which the management also made, “could not guarantee long-term competitive continued operation”. You have to close so that “in the worst case, the continued existence of the entire Vallourec Group is not endangered in the medium term,” said Guillemot.

Vallourec wants to hold talks about a reconciliation of interests and a social plan

Vallourec now wants to start talks with the works councils and IG Metall about a reconciliation of interests and a social plan. “We are interested in finding a fair and decent solution for the people we have worked with for so long,” said Guillemot. “We are trying to mitigate the effects as much as possible given the overall situation.” As is well known, however, employee representatives are calling for a social wage agreement to be negotiated. The catalog of demands is long and, if only partially enforced, would mean a costly exit for the French group.

In the evening, employees were called upon to gather at the Dümpten plant to exchange ideas with the works council and IG Metall until midnight. A few colleagues from the former sister works of Europipe and Mannesmann Grobblech also came over to the Vallourec site to offer consolation. “There is great concern here. It’s tough how Vallourec treats the people here, said Dirk Horstkamp, ​​secretary of IG Metall in Mülheim. The workforce threw everything into the balance.

Great dismay: “It’s tough how Vallourec treats the people here”

Ultimately, the employer, who has always only done “work to rule” in communication with the workforce and the union, cannot be said to have any serious intentions to save the jobs. The forthcoming plant closures are the result of a script-like process over the past few months. Vallourec was only concerned with “getting your head out of the noose as quickly as possible”, Horstkamp criticized that a continuation concept had not been worked out in more detail with the employees.

“The management is so cowardly that it doesn’t want to appear in front of the team until Friday to inform them,” said Ousama Bouarous, head of the works council, expressing his frustration in the evening. He denied that the corporate leaders had any serious will to look out for solutions in the past few months that would have secured employment for at least part of the workforce. “Tradition, history comes to an end here, livelihoods are thrown overboard,” says Bouarous about the approaching end of the once proud Mannesmann company. Dismay and disappointment are “hard to put into words. Everyone is devastated.”

Works council boss: “Will see our last labor dispute through to the end”

Like IG Metall secretary Horstkamp, ​​Bouarous announced a decisive industrial dispute for a social wage agreement. The employees do not want to be satisfied with a reconciliation of interests and social welfare. Bouarous considers the first warning strikes to be possible in the near future. “The social wage agreement will be quite expensive. It will have to hurt the company a lot because we want to cushion the social disadvantages for our colleagues as much as possible. It is our last industrial action, which we will see through to the end.”

“Our thoughts are with the affected employees who are losing their jobs and their families, who fear for their existence,” Mayor Marc Buchholz reacted promptly in the evening. He was “disappointed that the affected cities were not addressed and informed again in advance by the management.” A rescue with federal and or state funds could have been discussed again, according to the OB.

Mülheim’s city council wants to secure the right of first refusal for the Vallourec area as early as May 24th

Head of Economic Affairs Felix Blasch regretted that with the decline of Vallourec “a traditional branch of the industrial landscape for Mülheim would be lost”. Now you have to get in touch with the company quickly, “how we can settle new companies and jobs in the area as soon as possible,” he said with a view to the upcoming decision of the city council to get a right of first refusal for the in a special session on May 24th secure a 35 hectare site. The area should be worth around 350 million euros.

“I hope that Vallourec also recognizes its part of the responsibility for the future of the Mülheim site,” says Blasch. The OB meanwhile announced that he wanted to exchange ideas with Düsseldorf’s OB Stephan Keller “in order to do as much as possible together for the Vallourec workforce what we can do”. Connections to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will certainly also be used.

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