Thyssenkrupp aims to cut 11,000 jobs in its steel division, which is 40 percent of the current total of 27,000 jobs. Germany’s largest steel company announced this on Monday, leaving steelworkers on the Rhine and Ruhr, in the Siegerland and Sauerland shocked. Meanwhile, the IG Metall trade union has made clear that it will support these attacks—provided, as with the cutbacks of recent decades, plant closures and compulsory redundancies are ruled out.

On Monday, the management board of the company’s steel division presented the long-announced “comprehensive industrial future concept” to the strategy committee of the supervisory board. It is an austerity plan designed to secure profits in the escalating global trade and economic war at the expense of the workforce.

By 2030, 5,000 jobs are to be cut at steelworks and factories at all sites, and this also includes “a significant streamlining of the administrative functions.” The processing plant in Kreuztal-Eichen in the Siegerland region, which employs almost 600 people, is to be closed. The largest steelworks in Germany, in the north of Duisburg, is also likely to be particularly affected. Almost 13,000 people currently work there.

Another 6,000 jobs are to be shed through outsourcing to external service providers or through sales. This particularly affects the 3,000 steelworkers at Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann (HKM) in the south of Duisburg.

Thyssenkrupp is the largest shareholder there with 50 percent, Salzgitter Stahl holds 30 percent, the French group Vallourec 20 percent. If the current purchase negotiations with the Hamburg-based financial investor CE Capital Partners (CEC) fail, “Thyssenkrupp Steel will hold talks with the other shareholders about mutually agreed closure scenarios,” the group explained.

The remaining 16,000 employees face wage cuts of 10 percent in order to bring personnel costs “to a competitive level,” according to the company. This is to be achieved, among other things, by cutting special payments and bonuses. Newly hired employees are to receive lower wages.

On the day the cuts were announced, Oliver Burkhard, the parent company’s chief human resources officer, announced that he would be resigning from this job on January 31, 2025. Burkhard, who was the North Rhine-Westphalia district leader of IG Metall before joining the group’s executive board, wants to devote himself entirely to his second job as CEO of the shipyard division Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS).

The arms manufacturer, which produces submarines and warships and employs 6,500 people, is almost drowning in orders because of escalating wars. It is currently working hard to go public, and Burkhard says he wants to concentrate fully on this task.

It is not yet known who will succeed him as head of HR at ThyssenKrupp. Within IG Metall, knives are already being sharpened. Tekin Nasikkol, the chairman of the general works council, will compete with other “distinguished” union officials for the job, which promises a salary of €400,000—per month.

Knut Giesler is likely to be among the applicants. The successor to Oliver Burkhard at IG Metall immediately declared his willingness to support the cutbacks in the steel division. Yesterday morning, he told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk that the union’s “red lines” were layoffs and plant closures. As soon as a commitment not to do so was secured, he said, negotiations could begin.