Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – After the announced end for the Vallourec steel tube factories in Düsseldorf and Mülheim at the end of 2023, companies and employees have agreed on a social wage agreement. Among other things, it provides for a basic severance payment of 1.25 monthly salaries per year of employment, as the German subsidiary of the French group announced on Friday in Düsseldorf. A bonus is also possible: If the sale of the properties in Düsseldorf and Mülheim bring in more than originally planned, the employees should be involved.
Around 2,400 employees are affected by the closure of the traditional plants. Production is to be gradually phased out by the end of 2023. From January 2024, the remaining employees can switch to a transfer company and continue their education there. Vallourec justified the closure with high losses, among other things.
Vallourec Labor Director Herbert Schaaff spoke of a “constructive and trusting negotiation process” after the agreement on a social wage agreement. General works council chairman Vilson Gegic called the agreement “fair and decent”. IG Metall quoted him as saying: “They should at least bleed. (…) The severance payments and other regulations will not bring us back our jobs – but they will at least help with reorientation.”
The two plants used to belong to Mannesmannrohren-Werke AG. The Düsseldorf plant in the Rath district has existed since 1899, the plant in Mülheim since 1966. Vallourec Germany had already closed another location in Düsseldorf in 2020. Since 2015, the company has already cut around 1,400 jobs in this country. The French group intends to continue operating a small research center in Riesa, Saxony, but is giving up production in Germany. The business with pipes for oil and gas fields is to be relocated to Brazil, while the business with pipes for mechanical and plant engineering is to be discontinued.
