“Game of Thrones” at Thyssenkrupp – after Gabriel’s resignation

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Drama, chaos, intrigue, heads turning and wild arguments: what happened on Thursday at the meeting of the supervisory board at Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG in Duisburg was a little reminiscent of the cult TV series “Game of Thrones”. A supervisory board chairman who styles himself as a worker hero and who, after resigning, does everything in his power to plunge the parent company into the abyss. IG Metall officials who are calling for an uprising against the company’s CEO Miguel Lopez. Green and red politicians who are taking to the barricades at factory gate 1.

But when the smoke clears and the fog of words clears, one very simple conclusion remains: Thyssenkrupp can no longer afford to keep the steel division alive in only a slightly modified form with billions of euros. The demands that the SPD politician Sigmar Gabriel, as chairman of the supervisory board, wanted to implement together with his steel boss Bernhard Osburg, simply exceed the remaining capabilities of the parent company. Therefore, a radical solution is needed, combined with halving production in Duisburg and (unfortunately) many thousands of layoffs.

For 15 years, the managers of the Ruhr group have been fighting against the bitter realization that minor capacity adjustments are no longer enough. The current CEO, Lopez, can certainly be accused of tactical errors and communication lapses. But the brawny Spaniard is right about this. He is the first CEO to no longer approach the situation with cloud-blowing, but with the most brutal possible realism. It was clear from the start that he would have to clash with many of those responsible – especially with Gabriel. The vain SPD man, who is always first and foremost concerned with himself and his public image, was out of place from the start.

Many construction sites at Thyssenkrupp

If Lopez were to bow to the wishes of his steel division, he would be putting the entire group at risk. The billions from the sale of the profitable elevator division have almost been used up – and all corners of the group lack money for urgently needed investments. The works councils of the steel division don’t care at all. Lopez should sell other parts of the group, that’s their logic, in order to save the blast furnaces in Duisburg. They talk a lot about the 28,000 jobs in the steel division, but almost never about the 73,000 other employees of the group.

Things are not going well in many areas at Thyssenkrupp. A look at the latest quarterly figures underlines the problem: not only did the steel division have to cope with cash outflows (minus 111 million euros), but also the important automotive division (minus 25 million euros). The newly formed “Decarbon Technologies” business area, which was launched with much advance praise, had operating cash flow at zero. Only the marine division (mainly due to high advance payments on new orders) and the metal trading division, which has been considered a safe bet for years, generated free funds. However, even there the profit margin is only one to two percent.

If the opponents succeed in preventing the Lopez plan for the steel division, Thyssenkrupp will be looking at a very sad future. One could speak of the dialectic of resistance: the more successfully the steelworkers resist, the more jobs will ultimately be lost in the entire group.