Social dialogue
It's good to talk
We believe that open dialogue with our employees is crucial to a productive and supportive working environment. Our experience proves that mutual trust and respect are vital to a genuine partnership approach, which has proved so effective for us in the US.
We're now looking to share this success across the whole Group, partly by establishing a new approach to dialogue, which involves everyone from the shop floor to senior management. The idea is for management and employees to meet at least once a month to discuss the important issues for their site, which might range from Health and Safety, to training and development.
Restructuring
Major corporate restructurings are always a challenge for employee relations. Our aim is always to approach these changes in a positive spirit, which means carrying out full consultations, honouring our commitments, and doing what we can to find other jobs in the Group for the people affected.
For example, we're planning a new Technical Education Centre in France. With around a third of our workforce in France set to retire in the next ten years we need to plan now to fill these vacancies. By investing 5 million euros in the Technical Education Centre we'll be able to put up to 120 students though engineering and technical training courses.
Dialogue
ArcelorMittal is committed to continuous dialogue at all levels of the business, and we do this in an open and structured manner, based on mutual respect, and with a free flow of information. We believe in the process of collective bargaining and have established productive partnerships with trade unions and employee representatives. A good example is the European Works Council (EWC), which was set up in July 2007, and brought together the works councils of the two predecessor companies.
The 54 members of the EWC represent both management and employees, and cover the 130,000 ArcelorMittal employees in the EU. As with every other aspect of ArcelorMittal, Health and Safety is a key focus for the EWC. This has already led to the establishment of a worldwide Health and Safety Committee, constituting a global partnership between ArcelorMittal and its trade unions. In 2008, we held 28 formal meetings with the EWC.
A ground-breaking agreement with our unions
In June 2008 we signed a worldwide Health and Safety agreement with the International Metal Workers Federation, the United Steelworkers and the European Metalworkers Federation. This is a first for the steel industry.
The result will be higher standards, better training, and more co-operation between management and employees. There will also be joint company and union Health and Safety committees in each of our plants.