Protesters Broke windows, setoff smokebombs in protest of layoffs and plant shutdowns.
Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steelmaker has been havinga rough time and shutdown plants around the world had a violent confrontation from steelworkers at the annual shareholders meeting in Luxembourg. The protests followed the plant shutdowns and reluctance by Arcelor Mittal to reopen the idled or closed plants.
An estimated 1000 protesters from the company’s plants in France and Belgium attacked the headquarters of the company at Luxembourg during a shareholder meeting.
Though the meeting was carried on inspite of the protests, the compnay chairman Lakshmi Mittal told the shareholders that companies were buying less steel and making steel without customers makes no point. He adds that he would shift production of steel to lower cost plants.
The usual European and American plants are high cost plants and seem to be ties up with companies producing Automobiles and other products which have seen a steep fall in the recession.
Dan Boone, Vicepresident of United steel works in Cleveland did say that the anger amongst colleagues can be understood but he told. “But you are not going to see those kinds of violent protest here.”
Arcelor predicts that the global steel demand is set to fall of by 20% in the current year.
