IG Metall announces future collective agreement with Alstom

In the shadow of industrial future planning, a step taken by IG Metall is making headlines. The abrupt withdrawal from the future collective bargaining agreement with Alstom, scheduled until 2026, marks a turning point in the dialogue between the social partners. "Our vision was to shape the sites into more performance-enhanced, competitive, and future-proof facilities through 'better-rather-than-cheaper' initiatives," explains René Straube, the chairman of the overall works council. He criticizes that Alstom had not sufficiently fulfilled the agreement from the beginning. According to IG Metall, this agreement was supposed to affect the Hennigsdorf, Görlitz, Bautzen, Siegen, and Kassel plants. Workers made sacrifices, including the renouncement of their holiday pay, trusting that Alstom would, in return, keep its promises to invest in German facilities. The persistence of dashed hopes ultimately forced the union to take the step of termination and it now demands the reimbursement of the foregone money of the employees. Meanwhile, Alstom announces its intention to realign its strategy, focusing on service operations, digitalization, and the interior fitting of trains. Although the Görlitz plant is currently plagued by the decreasing demand for the construction of raw train carriages, the company emphasizes the need not to draw hasty conclusions about the site from the current situation. Production of various projects continues unchanged in the meantime. Alstom insists on fulfilling its obligations from the collective bargaining agreement and has announced that it will conduct a legal assessment of the termination. Whether this legal review will lead to a convergence of positions or to a further escalation remains to be seen, while the workers linger in an air of uncertainty.