NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE BETWEEN ALCOA AND UNIONS TO TRY TO REACH AN AGREEMENT

Negotiations continue between the multinational Alcoa, administrations and trade unions in order to try to reach a satisfactory agreement for all parties. The multinational Alcoa offers to close the aluminum plant for two years, 2022 and 2023, to restart the activity in January 2024. Meanwhile, he pledges that there will be no layoffs and leave will be paid.

Alcoa intends that the agreement is immediate to close the factory in January next year. For their part, the unions demand guarantees and guarantees to ratify the proposal and resume production of the aluminum plant completely by 2024.

Specifically, the multinational is “willing to extend for a period of three years the current contracts directly affected by the temporary cessation of the electrolysis activity and the anode plant” that it intends to carry out in 2022 and 2023. In addition, it proposed to the unions the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement with a validity until December 31, 2025 and advanced that it is working on the contracting of energy supply from 2024.

As for investments, the company added at Monday’s meeting that it had committed the necessary funds to replace one of the homogenizing furnaces, which would entail “an increase in the production capacity of foundry billets”, and offered the possibility of depositing or guaranteeing the necessary funds for the investments, something demanded by trade unions and administrations. In the previous meeting, the company had confirmed improvements in the anode baking furnace and in the main substation, as well as to assume the cost of restarting 100% of the primary aluminum production in 2024.

The trade unions consider that supplies and transport are going to be priority when it comes to obtaining contracts, while the auxiliary ones would have contracts for three years, but they also want to introduce a clause so that no Erte or Ere can be applied during those three years.