Martina Vogel could certainly have imagined a better start to her new role as works council chairwoman at Rohrwerk Maxhütte. At the end of March, the traditional company from Sulzbach-Rosenberg in the Upper Palatinate filed for insolvency. At the beginning of April, Vogel took over from her predecessor, who was retiring.
But at least since last Friday the turmoil over bankruptcy money has been over. The process is ongoing and the employment agency will cover the wages of around 320 employees until the end of May. “The employees are very affected. The salaries for March have not yet been paid out, and very few people expected another insolvency,” says Vogel.
The Maxhütte is considered a remnant of what was once the largest steelworks in southern Germany. It was already facing insolvency in 2022, when the British pipe company Mertex, which specializes in the energy sector, took over business operations. Now they are looking for new investors again.
The first authorized representative of IG Metall Amberg, Udo Fechtner, expects a decision by the end of May as to whether and how the pipe mill will continue. “There is already an interested party for a transferring restructuring, but we are still at an early stage in the negotiations,” said the trade unionist.
The recent bankruptcy doesn’t just hit employees hard. There is also great concern in the region. In addition to the pipe mill, there was once a larger steelworks that at times covered almost half of Bavaria’s steel and iron needs. At its peak, several thousand people worked at the location in Upper Palatinate, but in the 1980s and 1990s the steelworks filed for bankruptcy. In 2002 it had to close permanently and 850 employees lost their jobs. Since then it has been rusting away as a massive industrial monument. Only the pipe factory remained, as the last part of the company – and as one of comparatively few steelworks in Bavaria.
While the insolvency proceedings two years ago were carried out under self-administration, this time the insolvency administrator Jochen Zaremba is responsible. At the moment he is primarily focused on conversations with customers. “We are trying to maintain business operations,” says the specialist lawyer for commercial and insolvency law. “But to do this we have to renegotiate the conditions with the clients, because the business is currently running at a high loss.” In a press release, Zaremba’s law firm had previously cited the impending loss of a major customer as one of the reasons for filing for bankruptcy.
Sustainable investment would be the future of the pipe mill
At least this has been averted so far; according to Zaremba, the pipe factory has retained all of its customers. However, the idea of a “green steelworks” must be rejected. This was actually intended to save the pipeworks into a better future. Two years ago, the in-house technicians developed a concept to make the energy supply independent of gas. To achieve this, the factory was to be powered entirely by electricity from a nearby solar field.
But a loan worth millions was missing for implementation. Even now, Zaremba sees no way to convince a potential new operator of such an investment: “I don’t know how the steelworks should be converted in the foreseeable future.” Holding on to the green steelworks is “completely illusory.”
Meanwhile, works council member Vogel finds it “a bit schizophrenic” not to make this sustainable investment: “That would be ideal for our pipe factory. Then there would at least be a future.” Otherwise, like many other people in the region, she is left with a lot of unanswered questions. When the Mertex Group got involved, says Vogel, it was generally assumed that everything was now dry. A fallacy.