The road to recovery in Europe’s auto industry will not be without obstacles. Many jobs are still on the line. Only a few carmakers are managing to pull through, by placing their bets on highly skilled labour. One of the consequences of the crisis in the European automobile market is the planned closure of several steelworks by Arcelor Mittal, such as in Liege in Belgium, and Florange in France. According to an analysis of the Belgian information centre CRISP, published in the daily Le Soir, it is first and foremost the system of globalisation that allows industrialists to open and close sites as and when it suits them. For any industrial group, every investment is seen as a source of profit and becomes an adjustable variable when so required by the market.
English: http://www.equaltimes.org/news/europe-worst-yet-to-come-for-car-industry
French: http://www.crisp.be/2013/01/mittal-patron-voyou/
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.