Liberty Galați workers protest unpaid wages as power cut and suspension loom

Protest outside the Galați prefecture

On Friday, 30 October 2026, steelworkers from Liberty Galați gathered on the square in front of the Galați prefecture from around 10:00. Crowd estimates varied by outlet and time: ProTV put the number at about 300 and Libertatea, in its latest update, at about 250, while earlier reports from Digi24 and Ziare.com spoke of more than a hundred. Workers said they had not been paid since May, and a rolling mill worker told News.ro that the Guarantee Fund should cover the remaining six salaries. The protesters also want the plant sold more quickly to an investor able to relaunch it. According to Libertatea, a delegation of 11 steelworkers handed a memorandum to prefect George Toderașc, who said the demands would be passed directly to the government once the meeting ended around midday.

Six months of unpaid wages

The core grievance is pay that has stopped. Cartel ALFA, a national trade union confederation, said in a September press release that the last salaries paid in full were for April, with only partial payments made for May. The preventive concordat procedure now applied to the company does not oblige payment of current wages, which leaves staff without wages, unemployment benefit or bank credit for living costs. The union asked the government to convene unions, management and the responsible institutions to agree a concrete plan for paying arrears and keeping the plant running. Its statement put the point this way:

“We cannot talk about protecting a facility of strategic importance while the people who keep it alive are left without income.”

At the protest, a worker said the sale could not move faster until now because there was no government, and that there is one now.

Electricity contract and the disconnection risk

The supply contract with Electrica, signed in February for six months and then extended once more, has expired. Electrica did not renew it because of unpaid debts, so the plant is being supplied temporarily through the day-ahead market. A company representative told News.ro that a disconnection was a matter of days. In an open letter signed by 26 directors, management warned:

“A possible disconnection of the Combine from electricity would cause, within a very short period of a few hours, the collapse of all its systems.”

Management estimated that restarting the platform could take up to 50 days and did not rule out imbalances in the national power system, while the welded pipe section, the only unit still running at full capacity, would also be hit. Prefect George Toderașc said he had informed the government of the risk:

“I have communicated to the Executive the risk of an energy interruption, which comes with certain social and even technological risks.”

Electrica and Liberty had announced a joint photovoltaic project of up to 500 MW in February.

Technical unemployment from 1 November

The executive management put its mandates on the table on Thursday, 29 October, warning of extreme dangers facing the platform. From 1 November about 2,200 employees are due to be placed in temporary suspension under the Labour Code, leaving only staff for guarding and preserving key installations on site. ProTV, citing Agerpres, reported that the suspension also covers staff of Liberty Tubular Products and that the company points to financial and operational difficulties along with energy and transport problems. Workers warned that cutting utilities and reducing staff to a minimum would expose machinery valued at millions of euros to irreversible degradation and vandalism. Workers have asked the government for urgent intervention to prevent utilities being cut off.