With the last of Germany’s coal mines due to close in December 2018, the training programmes at the Prosper-Haniel and Ibbenbüren mines are also drawing to an end. In Bottrop, 58 trainees gathered together on 8th February this year to receive their skilled worker’s certificates at their official graduation event (Figure 1). Prior to this, the final 44 trainees at Ibbenbüren mine had also passed their exams and collected their skilled worker’s certificates.
At the graduation event in Bottrop, RAG Deputy Chairman Peter Schrimpf highlighted that: “RAG has always acknowledged its responsibility to the regions. That is something that carries all the way through to training. For a long time, RAG was the biggest training provider in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Saarland. The organisation has helped over 100,000 young people to gain a solid professional qualification with which to launch their career.” The graduation was also attended by the mine’s HR Director Bernd Beier, Works Council Chairman Sandro Atzori and District Manager of the IG BCE Gelsenkirchen industrial union Thomas Steinberg, as well as Principal of the Mitte vocational college in Recklinghausen, Klaus-Peter Rüsing.
RAG’s recent graduates from the last two coal mines were trained to become industrial engineers, machine and system operators, electronic technicians for industrial engineering, chemical technicians and mechatronics engineers. Many of them are taking up the offer of three months’ work on the mine following their training. With RAG’s training being so highly regarded and demand for skilled workers being so high, their employment prospects look very strong. “Co-determination and business go hand in hand to make sure our young technicians move onto highly skilled jobs where they can apply the skills they learned with us,” explained the Works Council Chairman Sandro Atzori. (RAG/Si.)
