Alarmed by the speed at which the steel industry is becoming a symbol of Europe’s economic decline, a top European Union official has called for the world’s biggest steel maker to postpone planned job cuts and factory closings.
The company, ArcelorMittal, has said no.
“Continuing to operate these plants would threaten the overall viability of our business in Europe,” said Nicola Davidson, a spokeswoman for the steel giant, which is based in Luxembourg.
“We are a public company,” Ms. Davidson said Wednesday. “We are responsible to our shareholders.”
And so go the politics and financial realities of steel in Europe, where, along with ArcelorMittal, the German company ThyssenKrupp and the British operations of Tata Steel have announced cutbacks adding up to thousands of European jobs.
“Without steel, there is no Europe,” the official, Antonio Tajani, a European commissioner for industry, said late Tuesday.
Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor from
via ArcelorMittal Rejects Europe’s Pressure on Job Cuts – NYTimes.com.
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