A dozen workers to lose jobs at John Zink in Dudelange, unions say

Thirteen employees are to lose their jobs at manufacturing firm John Zink in Dudelange, trade unions said on Monday.

John Zink, which specialises in producing parts for oil refineries, currently employs 228 people at its plant.

The OGBL and LCGB trade unions said in a press release that they were informed on Monday that the group’s management intends to implement a redundancy plan to cut 13 jobs.

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“John Zink already made 50 employees redundant in 2017,” the unions said in their statement. “With the reorganisation of the finance and IT departments, the companies belonging to the Koch group want to cut costs, at all costs,” the statement added.

The unions strongly criticised “the decision to force through and impose a redundancy plan with compulsory redundancies instead of negotiating a plan to maintain jobs.”

They claim that it should have been possible to find alternative jobs in Luxembourg for the employees, largely within the Koch Group itself, had a job retention plan been set up.

The firm is part of the larger American company, Koch Industries, which employs more than 120,000 staff worldwide and is active in 60 countries, including in the fields of oil production, natural gas, chemicals, energy, asphalt, fertilisers, food and plastic.

(This article was first published by Virgule. Translation and editing by Alex Stevensson)