A Day in a Life... José Pinheiro, ArcelorMittal Belval

It's not yet 6am. José, still with sleepy eyes, is ready to put on his work clothes at the cloakroom of the Belval site, situated in the south of Luxembourg. He lives with his wife Rosa and his 3 children in Rodange, a Luxembourg city near the border with Belgium and France, around 10 km away from the plant.

 Heading to the electric furnace, José meets Michel Claisse, who has been in Belval for 1 month, following a restructuring made in our Luxembourg locations to respond to the weak steel demand.

The morning shift is José's favourite, despite having to wake up so early. He rotates between morning shift, afternoon shift (starting at 2pm) and night shift (starting at 10pm) on a weekly basis.

José has been working in Belval, cradle of the Luxembourgish steel industry, for 18 years now. "At the beginning it was hard. The most veteran colleagues were used to working manually. Now, most of the processes are operated automatically," he says.

A morning laugh at the casting control cabin. Between production and maintenance, in every shift there are 22 colleagues working at the steelmaking plant, out of 1,000 in Belval. José presides over the "Amicale des employés" (employees' club). They organise regular activities, such as dinners with the wives and playing ‘quilles' (a popular Luxembourg variation of bowling). Theirs is an international team which is typical for Luxembourg; José has Italian, French, Belgian, Luxembourgish and Polish colleagues!

"If you think that you know it all, then it's dangerous - one must always respect the installations," José says. Safety procedures are the first thing that any new employee at the site learns. Also everyday, José and his team hold a security meeting.

José takes his job quite seriously and does not joke a lot, but during that day he had to climb the stairs that go to the electric furnace several times... even more than usual! He can resist saying, "I will end up having steel legs!"

The electric furnace, where José has been working since 1998. Still today, he finds it an "amazing recycling process": "We melt down 175 kilos of scrap to produce 157 kilos of liquid steel, at over 1,600º Celsius... in just around 1 hour". Most of the steel they produce is used to create beams for the construction industry.

"Silvery" Protective Personal Equipment (PPE) for the electric furnace, hanging outside the dispatching room.

Quick coffee at the cafeteria. These days, many conversations are about the effects of the global crisis on the steel industry. In José's view, people are no less motivated: "We come every day to the plant to work the best we can," he explains. "That's all we can do."

José recalls a fatality in July 2008 in Belval. The colleague who lost his live was 40 years old. "It was sad. Things like that should never happen, but it was also a call to order." For José, zero risk does not exist: "Before doing any movement, you have to think." In early 2008 there was an explosion at the electric furnace, where José works. He was projected 5 meters. Luckily, no one was injured.

...where José spends 5 or 6 hours every working day.

Time to leave the plant. José drives a second hand Ford Orion that he bought from a colleague. Behind him, at the entrance of the Belval site, a screen shows the number of days passed with no lost-time accident (264 on that day: the site already beating its own record).

"I usually eat only once a day; I hate eating by myself," José says. However, on that day he is not alone, so he goes to a Portuguese restaurant in Athus (the Belgian continuation of Rodange, where José lives)...

... José orders "bacalhau a bras", a delicious codfish recipe. José and his family usually visit Portugal once per year, in Summer. For Easter, they like to travel to countries such as Turkey.

A group of children wait for José at the Rodange sports centre for their weekly training. He is a football coach of children around 12 years old. "With that age, what's really important is not football skills, but to be able to integrate yourself in a team." 3 of the children he trains play on the Luxembourg national team.

In 1 and a half hours, the 15 children in the group do plenty of different exercises. José talks to them in Luxembourgish. Something that he tries to teach the group is: "It's important to learn to be a good loser, to learn to behave yourself when it happens, because when one grows up, not everything in life is going to be good news and promotions at work."

Running fast is also important to be a good football player! The child with the Barça t-shirt is Smaïn, José's elder boy.

Luxembourg is known as the unspoiled natural heartland of Europe and that grass is certainly always green... That's one of the good effects of frequent rain!

Back home. José lives in a house in a residential area of Rodange, where, by the way, there are two other ArcelorMittal sites! After the working day and the football training, José enjoys a cup of coffee in the terrace. He did most of the work at the house on his own, with his wife Rosa. He knows he still has some things to do...

With his youngest son Malik (2) at the entrance of his house. Malik was a bit ill that day and had not gone to school.

José lives by a park. He looks at his middle son Loïc play.