German workers approved Monday their union's results in talks with India's Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp's steel division ahead of a planned merger - but the vote does not remove all obstacles to the tie-up. Some 92.2 percent of IG Metall members polled agreed to executives' guarantee not to slash jobs or close major sites until at least September 2026 if the fusion succeeds, the union said in a statement.
"We managed to clear up important points in favour of the employees," said Detlef Wetzel, who sits on ThyssenKrupp Steel's supervisory board as a worker representative. Nevertheless, workers' acceptance of the guarantees does not mean the deal can immediately go ahead.
"Only the supervisory board can decide that, and it's far from certain whether worker representatives will agree," Wetzel continued. IG Metall has commissioned expert studies on whether the merged companies would be economically viable, it said.
ThyssenKrupp and Tata's tie-up would create a firm with combined annual sales of around 15 billion euros ($18.6 billion) and 48,000 employees, second only to ArcelorMittal in Europe.
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