Employees of U.S. Steel Kosice will work a reduced, four-day week in August. They will receive 60 percent of their pay on days on which they stay at home, U.S. Steel Kosice labour union head Juraj Varga told TASR on Thursday. As he added, the trade unions agreed on this with the company management. The reason for the shortened working week is the unfavourable situation on the steel market. The net income of the company was $29 million in 2019 Q1 while for the same period of the year 2018 it was $110 million, the RTVS public broadcaster informed. The main causes of the unfavourable condition are high electricity prices and the import of cheap steel from third countries.
A four-day week was also worked in the metallurgical plant in May and July. As U.S. Steel Kosice spokesperson Jan Baca confirmed, this is only one of hundreds of cost saving measures taken by the company. U.S. Steel Kosice announced last week that in order to improve the financial position of the company by the end of 2021, it would reduce the number of employees working in the steelworks and its subsidiaries by 2,500. More than 12,000 employees currently work in the factory. "We've been currently offered a one-off programme for a voluntary departure of employees that will take place in August. It's open and in a comment procedure," added Varga.
U.S. Steel Employees have started a petition asking the Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini to get involved in solving their unfavourable situation. The crisis has affected steel producers all across Europe. If the situation does not improve, companies will have to be closed with more than 2 million people left unemployed.
