On 26 September, the European union federation IndustriALL Europe held a trade union coordination meeting, the upshot of which was to set out a European strategy in response to Caterpillar’s restructuring plans. At the start of September, the US mining and construction equipment manufacturer announced that it intended to close its Belgian site at Gosselies with the immediate loss of 2,200 jobs. Less publicity surrounded its earlier announcement of the closure of its UK site in Monkstown, Northern Ireland where 250 workers will also lose their jobs. European unions want both to put the company under pressure to improve the situation for those particular workers affected and draw the public authorities’ attention to the threat that is hanging over all of the group’s European based sites in the face of the company’s global restructuring plan.
Caterpillar’s announcement that it was to close its Gosselies (Belgium) site has hit the workers particularly hard given the fact that they had previously agreed to productivity boosting measures. In 2013 the Belgian site was restructured with 1,400 layoffs and the introduction of more flexible working (sixteen mandatory working Saturdays to match production peaks, more overtime hours, certain obligatory days off, more regulation over absenteeism, a new working organization, etc.).
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