THE UNIONISTS OF MECHEL - CÂMPIA TURZII: "The contract with Mechel needs to be canceled"

• The unionists are preparing a large-scale protest

• "We will block access into the plant, if the management of Mechel will continue to turn the equipment into scrap metal"

• "I have notified the AVAS ever since 2006 about the situation at Mechel-Câmpia Turzii. Nothing happened!"

• The "Bar and Slabs Forge" (Mechel Târgovişte), which even worked for the military industry, has lost its market

Thing are becoming increasingly tense at the Mechel Câmpia Turzii plant.

Following some requests sent by the Wire Industry Union of Câmpia Turzii and by the prefecture of Cluj to Victor Ponta and the competent ministers, a meeting took place yesterday, with the participation of the delegated minister for Social Dialog, Liviu Pop.

He announced that the Government will review the contract for the privatization of the Industria Sârmei Câmpia Turzii metallurgic plant (which was renamed to Mechel Câmpia Turzii in 2003), given the numerous questions around it: "There are issues concerning the privatization of the Câmpia Turzii plant in 2003, and around the activities which are taking place here, as the decisions which are implemented are being made somewhere else. There are signs that this contract has not been honored. When it comes to the government we are required to take the first steps and we will have a discussion with the ministers of the Economy, Finance, Environment, with the Authority for the State Assets Recovery (AVAS) to check the status of the privatization contract and its consequences. If any irregularities are found, the institutions of the state will be notified - if it is unfair competition, abuse of office, negligence on the job. We will try to obtain the desecretization of this contract".

The leader of the union of Mechel Câmpia Turzii, Ioan Pascu, said that according to his information, the contract with Mechel is secret.

In spite of all this, he has succeeded in obtaining some of the paragraphs included in the privatization contract, which he has revealed to Bursa.

One thing is certain: if Prime Minister Victor Ponta does not take action soon, the unionists are decided to take their actions further, to notify the National Anticorruption Department and the general prosecutors' office, says Ioan Pascu.

Moreover, the employees of Mechel are decided to do anything to stop the scrapping of the machinery or its potential sale.

The leader of the "Industria Sârmei" (Wire Industry) Union told us: "We are preparing a major protest in Câmpia Turzii, in the next 10-12 days.

We have not yet set the exact date, but we are going to perfect the terms of this movement together with the mayoralty and the prefects' office.

Moreover, if the management of Mechel will continue to scrap or sell machinery, we will block the gates and the divisions of the plant. When we get the signals, we will act on that matter. It will be our very own people who will have to cut the machinery to pieces, so we will know first hand if it is happening.

We have announced the authorities and the management of Mechel about our intention".

• Ioan Pascu: The terms of several articles of the privatization contract have been broken

According to Ioan Pascu, Mechel has violated several articles of the privatization contract.

For instance, the document stipulated that the duties of the buyer were, among other things, to take over "all the existing rights and obligations concerning the collective labor contract and/or other agreements between the unions and the owners of the company", when it comes to salaries, keeping or preserving employees.

Moreover, another clause stipulates "the obligation of the buyer to keep a number of 5,630 employees for five years after the signing of the contract with continuous employment contracts".

Nevertheless, Mechel has begun cutting the number of employees as early as 2004. The employee structures oscillated as follows, says Ioan Pascu: 2003 - 5630 employees; 2004 - 5507 employees; 2005- 5169 employees; 2006 - 4478 employees; 2007 - 3390 employees; 2008 - 2697 employees; 2011- 1925 employees.

This year, a collective layoff of 850 employees is set to take place, the unionist announced in closing.

According to a document made available to our newspaper by Ioan Pascu, the management of Mechel Câmpia Turzii has made the commitment in 2006, in a meeting with the mayoralty of Câmpia Turzii, the prefecture of Cluj, employees of Mechel Câmpia Turzii and representatives of the unions, "that none of the functional pieces of machinery in the production departments will be dismantled, at the present time, or in the future".

In spite of that, Ioan Pascu says that even though the privatization contract stipulated that Mechel must comply with "the agreements concluded with the unions", this thing hasn't happened:

"Since the privatization of the < Industria Sârmei Câmpia Turzii > plant, in 2003, and until the present day, less than half of the 16 divisions have remained functional.

The machinery has been cut to pieces and sold as scrap metal or disassembled and sent to Russia, the union leader says, and he went on to say: "Two years ago they disassembled a machine and they transported it to Russia. Our specialists reassembled it there".

Under these circumstances, the union leader stands by his opinion that Mechel wants to withdraw from Romania.

In his opinion, the Romanian authorities should seize the company's assets, for failing to meet the terms of the clauses from the privatization contract, and nationalize the plant of Câmpia Turzii.

Ioan Pascu expressed his disappointment that, although he has been informing the authorities for years about the situation at Mechel, no action was taken:

"In 2006 I have notified the AVAS about the situation at Mechel Câmpia Turzii. The talks lasted about 3-4 weeks, and then the dust settled down.

I have later sent them notifications, and they did not reply.

The problem is that in the meantime, the period of five years from the signing of the contract during which the investor was supposed to comply with its provisions has expired. After the five years, there was a period of two years of oversight by the AVAS.

However, Mechel sent a request to the AVAS which was approved, that the period of compliance with the contractual provisions would be reduced from five years to three".

• Vlăsceanu Aurel, of the union of Mechel Târgovişte: "Instead of cutting machinery to pieces and closing down divisions, Mechel should try to find an investor"

The difficult situation that Mechel Câmpia Turzii is in also exists in the other plants which the Russian investor acquired in Romania.

At Mechel Târgovişte, between the privatization of 2002 and the present day (2002) six divisions have been shut down, said Aurel Vlăsceanu, the vice-president of the union of Mechel Târgovişte.

Only 7 divisions have remained operational.

One of the shuttered divisions is the special division "Slabs and Bars Forge", which served many customers, including the military industry.

In June 2010, the BURSA newspaper reported that the Russian investor has transferred two machines of strategic importance, the only ones of their kind in South-Eastern Europe, which were certified NATO, to a company in the Urals.

The action was legal, considering that the period during which the Russians were required to comply with the privatization contract had expired four years earlier, and therefore the restriction to sell assets in the patrimony, was no longer valid.

At that time, the unionists also complained that the negotiations for the Slab And Bars Special division had not been conducted separately and that it was one step from being left out of the privatization contract. In the end, the protests of the unionists have caused the government to include in the contract the clause protecting the machines in question for five years.

Aurel Vlăsceanu said that according to his information, Mechel has sold three such machines, which were won in a call for tenders by a company in Russia.

Prior to the privatization, the plant of Târgovişte had approximately 5700 employees, and it currently has 2000, the unionist says, and he is now convinced that Mechel will continue the layoffs in the coming period.

According to Aurel Vlăsceanu, instead of cutting the machines to pieces or selling them, Mechel should be looking for an investor, to whom it could sell the plant.