DÜSSELDORF/DUISBURG (dpa-AFX) - North Rhine-Westphalia's Minister of Labor Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) has called on the management of the industrial group Thyssenkrupp to respect the social partnership. "There are few companies in Germany that are as strongly co-determined as Thyssenkrupp and where social partnership has such a long tradition," explained Laumann on Tuesday before a protest rally of Thyssenkrupp steelworkers in Duisburg at the request of the German Press Agency.

This tradition had made the company strong and carried it through crises. "I expect the company management to be aware of the responsibility it bears for our country and the people in the Ruhr region. And that it does not trample on the tradition of social partnership, but involves the workforce so that it is clear: here in Duisburg, we are moving forward with a strategy for the future of steel in North Rhine-Westphalia." He promised that the state government would stand by the steelworkers and fight with them for the future of steel in North Rhine-Westphalia. Laumann also intends to address the employees at the rally in the morning.

Laumann went on to explain that the state government, together with the federal government, had sent thyssenkrupp a claim of around two billion euros. The up to 700 million euros from NRW is the largest single demand in the history of the federal state. "We have done this to support the transformation in the steel industry and to make steel green and future-proof." Laumann went on to say that the money had also been spent "so that the employees in the steel industry, the supplier industries and processing companies have a future here and not to fill investors' accounts".

Duisburg is the heart of the North Rhine-Westphalian steel industry. From here, steel goes all over the world and this must remain the case in the future. "Only with a strong steel industry can North Rhine-Westphalia remain the important industrial state that it is," said Laumann.

At the demonstration, the employees want to protest against the management's approach to the deal with the new co-owner EPCG. They accuse the management of having inadequately informed the employee representatives in advance of the recently decided sale of a steel division share. Thyssenkrupp rejects the accusations. In addition to Laumann, Bundestag President Bärbel Bas and Federal Minister of Labor Hubertus Heil (both SPD) also want to speak to the employees./tob/DP/zb