DUISBURG (dpa-AFX) - Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (SPD) will also address the employees at the planned staff meeting of all Thyssenkrupp Steel sites in Duisburg on Tuesday next week. Dzenan Kurspahic, Managing Director of the General Works Council, said this on Wednesday in response to a dpa inquiry.

The subject of the meeting is the planned reduction of production capacities in Duisburg. Thyssenkrupp Steel, Germany's largest steel manufacturer, announced a significant downsizing two weeks ago. This will also involve job cuts, it was said. However, compulsory redundancies are to be avoided.

Bas and Laumann also want to give speeches

According to Kurspahic, speeches by Duisburg MP and Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD) and North Rhine-Westphalia's Minister of Labor Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) are also planned for the non-public meeting in a Duisburg stadium. It is not yet clear how many employees will attend the meeting. The General Works Council considers around 10,000 participants to be possible. Around 27,000 people work in the division of the Thyssenkrupp Group, 13,000 of them in Duisburg. Almost all sites are located in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Thyssenkrupp CEO Miguel López has also been invited to the meeting, but will not be attending. "So far, there are only conceptual outlines of a planned realignment of the steel division, which now need to be fleshed out and then discussed," said the company's headquarters. López will speak when there are answers to the questions that are currently still open.

It remains to be seen how many jobs could be affected by the planned capacity reduction and when the restructuring will begin. An employment guarantee applies until the end of March 2026.

The works council and IG Metall only want to talk to management about the planned reduction in capacity under certain conditions. Before negotiations can begin, they are demanding, among other things, a guaranteed exclusion of redundancies for operational reasons and location guarantees for all sites./tob/DP/ngu