In Luxembourg: “The situation is untenable, we are in negative territory and the fridge is empty”

“It becomes an obsession. Every day I check the account to see if the money has arrived. Sharon* is the wife of one of the 147 remaining employees at the steel company Liberty Steel in Dudelange, where October salaries have still not been paid.

“The situation is untenable, we are in the negative, we are no longer able to pay the bills, whereas we were used to honoring them all as soon as we received the salary,” she breathes. “I turned to the municipal social assistance service, which takes part of the cost, but for a contribution of 50 euros, reduced from the allowances received for our 14-year-old daughter.”

And it is also thanks to this service that Sharon can still feed her family. “When, on September 19, the salaries for August and September were paid jointly, this windfall allowed me to do as much shopping as possible, to buy non-perishable foods, like pasta, sugar… But today Today the fridge is empty. We have consumed practically everything since then, and social assistance referred me to a Red Cross shop: I receive vouchers every week, which quite simply allow us to… not die of hunger!” .

Sharon, who works part-time 19 hours a week, at one point even wanted to stop the loan on her house. “We are still eight years short, and I was strongly advised not to do it because we would have to pay interest on it later.”

Sharon’s husband has been an office worker for thirty years at Liberty Steel. “It’s his first job, he’s spent his entire career there. He must have eight or nine years left before he retires…” If everything went normally for more than two decades, it was “a little before Covid, in 2019, that things started to change. spoil,” remembers Sharon.

Completely shut down since the fall of Greensill in March 2021, the Dudelange factory is still waiting for a hypothetical buyer. “My husband goes to the office on site Mondays-Tuesdays-Wednesdays every other week, and Thursdays-Fridays the other week alternately, but he spends his day…doing nothing. The activity is zero. It’s total depression, psychologically, it’s very hard. He is bored, and for my part, I am lucky enough to be naturally patient, I put up with a lot of things.”

But now, inactivity for more than three and a half years has been compounded since September by the non-payment of salaries on time. A critical situation which weighs down the atmosphere in Sharon’s home. “Our 14-year-old daughter is very difficult. Nothing goes to school anymore, she doesn’t want to anymore. Everything has deteriorated since the start of the school year. In addition, it closes like an oyster and does not communicate. In this regard, we feel completely neglected, abandoned by everyone. That’s it, we live with that.”

Sharon is at the end of her rope. “I wake up every night at 3 a.m. and can’t get back to sleep. Sometimes I have a sleepless night, and then I have to go to work right away. It’s horrible!” Sharon’s husband has no immediate plans to find another job. “He would lose everything to which he is entitled.” “The best solution,” says Sharon, “would be for a buyer to come forward and for the business to continue as before. But, despite brief glimmers of hope, I no longer believe in it. Failing that, I would still prefer bankruptcy to the current situation. Because I finally absolutely want to know what the next day will bring,” she concludes in a tone close to despair.