Shaping industrial transformation democratically
Who owns the industry that is supposed to be transformed?
Rebuilding the basic materials industry is the most expensive and most drawn-out task of the social-ecological transformation. It needs investment over decades whose return is uncertain — precisely what private owners are structurally not set up for. We know the result: investment is postponed, sites are closed, public funding flows without the public having any say.
Socialization turns that around. Public, democratically administered ownership makes long-term and coherent planning possible, ties public money to public control, and gives employees a voice in decisions that determine their work. The high market concentration in the steel sector is not an obstacle here but a starting point: a few large players can be transferred in a targeted way.
For this, communia works with trade unions, works councils, researchers and political decision-makers — at German and at European level.
Steel as the test case for industrial policy
The steel sector faces a historic fork in the road. Around 300,000 direct and up to 2.5 million indirect jobs in Europe depend on it — and with it the decarbonization of industry as a whole. ThyssenKrupp Steel and Tata Steel are planning extensive job cuts, while the switch to green hydrogen is barely moving forward.
Private steel corporations are cutting the investment that would be needed. Politics responds with subsidies without conditions, a carbon border adjustment and, where things are burning, with rescue nationalizations without a plan. The core problem remains untouched: long-term social and ecological needs stand in contradiction to short-term profit interests.
communia proposes a different route. Transferring the steel industry into democratic ownership oriented towards the common good is not a last resort but the transformation solution: it makes long-term planning possible, it secures jobs, and it ties public money to public control.
Studies and publications
Study: Socializing the steel industry
September 2025. On top of structurally caused global overproduction, weak demand and long investment cycles comes the switch to green hydrogen. The study shows that a steel industry in private hands cannot manage this transformation, even with massive public funding. It compares the political approaches on offer — from subsidy policy through rescue nationalizations to carrying on as before — and develops the key elements of a transformation model based on public ownership.
Read the study (in German)
Study: European steel policy
Together with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Brussels, March 2026. European steel policy means public investment, socialization and planning. The study looks at the European level: an industry in deep crisis, governments that come up with little more than market incentives and carbon taxes at the external borders, and a backlog of decarbonization investment that private corporations will not clear.