Is Dąbrowa Górnicza – a city built around the former “Katowice” steelworks – facing a wave of unemployment and crisis due to the troubles of Poland’s largest steel mill?
In September, at ArcelorMittal Poland, the former “Katowice” steelworks, and the largest metallurgical plant in the country, blast furnace no. 3 was shut down. For now, temporarily. It is a visible sign that the steel industry across Poland stands on the brink of collapse. Workers at ArcelorMittal fear layoffs. The mayor of Dąbrowa Górnicza has written a dramatic letter to Donald Tusk, appealing for intervention.
The steelworks created the city; without it, decline awaits. Internet users are merciless: “The letter will arrive, maybe even be read, but I wouldn’t expect any help,” commented one Dąbrowa Górnicza resident on social media.
In the 1990s, waves of layoffs triggered a crisis
This year’s shutdown of blast furnace no. 3 nearly coincides with the 48th anniversary of the launch of the medium hot rolling mill, which marked the start of full-scale production at the Katowice steelworks on September 26, 1977.
During the plant’s construction, as many as 50,000 people worked in Dąbrowa Górnicza, and the complex spanned nearly 2,000 hectares. Large housing estates, schools, and roads were built. It was the fulfillment of Edward Gierek’s dream of Poland’s industrial greatness.
Later, more plants sprang up beside the steelworks, for example, the “Przyjaźń” coking plant, now JSW Koks, the largest in Europe.
In the 1990s, successive waves of layoffs caused a crisis among subcontractors and, above all, hit the people of Dąbrowa Górnicza and the entire Zagłębie region hard.
When, in 2003, Indian businessman Lakshmi Mittal acquired shares in the Dąbrowa steelworks, further staff reductions followed. Many unemployed residents, or those retiring, left Dąbrowa Górnicza and returned to their home regions. As a result, the city’s population dropped from nearly 150,000 to about 110,000 today.
As jobs disappear, the city empties
Sociologist Dr. hab. Piotr Wróblewski explains:
“Reducing employment at the Dąbrowa Górnicza steelworks and the coking plants will worsen the economic situation of workers and their families. But we must view this more broadly. In the Silesian voivodeship, we already saw it in the Kościuszko Steelworks in Chorzów: when the last blast furnace was shut down in 1993, production was gradually scaled back, and by 2012 the plant – once the very core of the city’s growth – declared bankruptcy.”
Today, only one branch remains in Chorzów, owned by ArcelorMittal since 2009, producing for the railway industry. The Kościuszko and Batory steelworks, together with the mines, once provided jobs for many, including those from outside the city. As jobs disappeared, Chorzów lost population and significance, with declining private and public revenues. The city center withered, and people were forced to seek work in other industries or outside the city. The Kościuszko steelworks was crucial to Chorzów’s development, just as the former Katowice steelworks, now ArcelorMittal, is vital for the economic well-being of Dąbrowa Górnicza and Poland at large.
“Please, get personally involved”
ArcelorMittal Poland remains the largest steel plant in Dąbrowa Górnicza, in the Zagłębie region, and in all of Poland.
The city’s mayor, Marcin Bazylak, though politically affiliated with the Left (part of the ruling coalition), is sounding the alarm. He has written another urgent letter to Donald Tusk. The first, sent in May, received a vague reply in July from the now-dissolved Ministry of Industry about general plans for the steel sector.
“On behalf of the residents of Dąbrowa Górnicza and the entire Dąbrowa Basin region, I ask the Prime Minister for personal involvement and for immediate measures to save the steel and coking industries in Poland, which are currently threatened with permanent shutdown and liquidation,”
wrote Bazylak.
He added:
“Both ArcelorMittal Poland and JSW Koks have invested nearly 2 billion złoty in Dąbrowa Górnicza over the past two years to continue operating, using Poland’s only remaining blast furnaces and the most modern coking battery in Europe, until a successful transformation can take place. Prime Minister, the people of Dąbrowa Górnicza and nearby towns remember the 1990s crisis all too well – the closures, mass unemployment, and social breakdown. Today, the specter of that scenario returning is frighteningly real.”
Unions raise the alarm
“Dąbrowa Górnicza stands on ArcelorMittal and JSW Koks,” says Jarosław Gałka, head of the Metalworkers and Steelworkers Federation (OPZZ). “We have some support from the mayor – he knows what’s at stake. Across both plants and their subcontractors, around 3,000 people are employed. ArcelorMittal is Poland’s largest steel plant, unfortunately, not Polish. The Indian businessman wants to sell it, that’s no secret. Steps have already been taken; the decision-making centers have been moved to India.”
There’s talk that the Polish government might buy the former Katowice steelworks. But look – the Częstochowa steelworks, already nationalized, is small, valued at 800–900 million zł. Likewise, with Ostrowiec. Now compare that scale to Katowice. Lakshmi Mittal bought it under a Left government for… 100 million zł.
“Today, building even a small new steel mill would cost about 5 billion zł. Mittal now holds all the cards to extract as much as possible from Poland. That’s the real concern – government buyout talk sounds good, transferring production capacity back to Poland’s control, but would a steel giant like Mittal really allow a Polish steelworks to grow freely?” Gałka asks.
Tanks made of paper?!
Residents are determined. Just last Friday, massive protests swept through the streets of Dąbrowa Górnicza.
“We’re defending our jobs. The shutdown of the blast furnace is deeply worrying. The Green Deal and the sluggishness of Donald Tusk’s government are hurting us,” says Janusz Mitura, who has worked at ArcelorMittal for 32 years.
“A plant like the former Katowice steelworks should be classified as a strategic enterprise. How can Poland build up its defense industry without its own steel? What will tanks and armored vehicles be made of? Paper?!”
“What Tusk is doing to the steel industry is disgraceful! There’s never money for us, for industry,” adds Krzysztof Oziębała, a lifelong resident of Dąbrowa Górnicza and a 10-year worker at the former Przyjaźń coking plant.
“Under PiS, there was money; under the Civic Platform, there never is. No tariffs protect our market – cheap steel comes from Ukraine, cheap coal from China and India. Where is this government?” he fumes.
He also reminds:
“Donald Tusk hasn’t met with steelworkers even once, and we’ve already been to Warsaw five times this year.”
Maria Zych, a native of Dąbrowa Górnicza who worked 32 years at the former Katowice steelworks and now heads the Retired Steelworkers Association, also voices concern:
“What will happen to this city if the steelworks and coking plant disappear? Where will people go? So many young workers here, with children, families to support,” she laments.
Too many times, politicians have let them down
On October 1, in Katowice, protesting steelworkers met with Miłosz Motyka, the Minister of Energy, who was attending the Precop 2025 conference on Poland’s energy security.
He promised to meet their demands, including preferential energy prices for industry and a ban on cheap steel imports from the East.
The steelworkers took his words at face value, but they are not ending their protests. Too many times, politicians have double-crossed them.