Due to the announced shutdown of aluminum production in Talum, a redundancy program was prepared at the beginning of April. 69 workers will be offered a new employment contract within the group, and 120 will be dismissed for business reasons.
In Talum, both the trade union and other employee bodies were informed about the redundancy program, which also approved it. In it, in accordance with the agreement with the workers’ representatives, the total length of service of the workers was taken into account as a basic criterion, which will ensure their rights and financial security in accordance with the law on labor relations and the law regulating the rights of the unemployed.
Group meetings are already underway with workers who are included in the redundancy program, which includes 189 employees in Talum. They will also hold a conversation with each individual, presenting the dates of service of the notice of termination, the notice period and other important information.
As a result of the shutdown of electrolytic aluminum production, they will also reduce the scope of work and adjust the organization of work in the companies Ekotal and Talum Inštitut, where they will serve the termination of the contract to eight employees under the same criteria as applies to Talum. There are currently 1,453 employees in the entire group.
Unsuitable economic conditions for aluminum production
With the shutdown of the electrolysis cells at the beginning of April, Talum will approach the fourth million tons of aluminum in its 68-year history. As they point out, they will do this in a controlled manner, whereby all devices will be properly conserved so that at least half of them can be restarted in the future.
At the same time, they emphasize that there are currently no suitable economic conditions for the production of primary aluminum either in Slovenia or in Europe. The reduction in the number of working electrolysis cells also markedly worsened the efficiency of the primary aluminum production process.
In the company, therefore, they focus on programs that achieve high added value and have customers, which mainly includes foundry, rondelics and heat transfer programs. Currently, they are working most intensively on the construction of a new factory for washers, which will be placed in the spare capacity of their foundry.
Talum is already the largest producer of washers in the world, and among other things, they were also the first to present a washer made of 100% recycled aluminum on the market. Their goal is to produce 60,000 tons of washers and 10,000 tons of other products with high added value.
As part of the green and smart transformation project, they are developing an advanced method of recycling waste aluminum and upgrading production lines that will enable the latter to manufacture new products. With the project, they plan to increase the proportion of waste aluminum in their products from today’s 39 to 55 percent by 2030, they also announced from Kidričevo’s Talum
Source: Rtvslo
