Trade Unions To March Against Looming Arcelormittal Job Cuts

The ANC, COSATU, the SACP and SANCO will today march against the potential closure of ArcelorMittal South Africa, which threatens to leave thousands of workers jobless.

Despite the companys decision to delay the closure of its long steel business by a month pending talks with the governmen t to try to save the business, the unions are demanding urgent government intervention to save the operations in Newcastle and Vereeniging.

The march is set to take place in Vereeniging. COSATU Gauteng Secretary Louisa Modikwe says the closure of ArcelorMittal will bring extreme poverty in workers lives.

The delay of job losses wont assist in this situation because we are talking massive job losses. Its not what we want to hear. What we want to hear, what the workers and the working class want to hear is that there will be no more job losses. So, as COSATU, we want them to be assisted by the government. But it cannot be correct that each and every time theres a situation, the CEO would come out and first victims will be the workers. That cant be correct. We dont want closure of this company. We cant afford that. We cant afford that extreme poverty.

ArcelorMittal SA to shutdown long steel business