Posted on 07/15/2004 10:13:36 AM PDT by ijcr
Tens of thousands of employees of German-U.S. car giant DaimlerChrysler are expected to down tools Thursday in a day of protest against management's cost-cutting plans.
Germany's largest industrial labor union, IG Metall, called for a concerted day of action against what it says are unacceptable measures to cut costs at one of the country's biggest corporations.
Some 600 workers at a Mercedes plant in Düsseldorf kicked off the action with an overnight demonstration by torchlight through the city streets.
At DaimlerChrysler's main site in Sindelfingen, near Stuttgart in southern Germany, around 20,00 employees answered the call to strike and stopped work for two hours earlier in the morning.
Further stoppages have been staged at car and truck factories throughout the country during the course of the day, notably in Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg, said IG Metall and the employee's council.
The carmaker employs around 160,000 people in Germany and some reports suggest that as much as half the workforce could join in the protests.
The strikes at all the German Mercedes factories are a direct response to DaimlerChrysler's threats to shift production of its new Mercedes C-Class sedan away from Sindelfingen to South Africa if unions do not agree to €500 million ($615 million) in personnel cost costs. Such a move could result in the loss of 6,000 jobs in Sindelfingen.
IG Metall slammed the threat as "blackmail" and vowed to fight the company's plans.
Protestors in Sindelfingen, a factory which employs close to 30,000 people, rallied around the union and displayed signs crying out, "it's war."
The head of the employee's council in Sindelfingen, Erich Klemm, said the union was willing to offer pay reductions up to €180 million, but not management's "outrageous" demands for half a billion in reductions.
A climate of fear
DaimlerChrysler has also threatened to move some jobs from Sindelfingen to Bremen, where production costs are lower, and to change contracts to eliminate extra pay for late shifts and five-minute breaks on every hour, effectively leading to an increase of the work week without more pay.
"Such proposals make me sick," said Klemm, who vowed that all the Mercedes factories would stick together in a show of solidarity.
The president of Germany's parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, lashed out at DaimlerChrysler management for "creating a climate of fear."
"It's repulsive to exert pressure on employees by making ultimatums," he told the daily Tagesspiegel on Thursday.
there was an article in the paper recently stating that union labor, health care, and so-called "legacy costs" amount to $7,500.00 of a new ford.
legacy costs are the health care and retirement of retired workers.
american union auto workers are over-paid.
Sehr gut!
Gerhard Schroder is Jacques Chirac-ass without the courage.
Let the weasels enjoy their one-world utopia!
Are you factoring in the white collar and other management costs? And what about the advertising costs?
It's a free country my friend. Don't want to pay for a new Ford? Don't buy one.
It all just brings a tear to my eye. :-)
Yeah, that'll change their mind, stop working. It'll change their mind to moving ALL their production facilities out of Germany.
you're missing the point. it's economics.
wages in germany are the highest in the world.
this will change.
the chinese will welcome this german strike.
My heart bleeds violet cougar urine for auto workers! They all are over paid, UNapperative of their jobs, nitwits! But I guess that is what you get when you let euro-twits [read as commies!] loose. Why else would you rent your job from someone who does not give 2 cents for you or your job, except to shake you down everypay day!
If I was running a major auto car company, I get rid of all the union a$$holes and get people who want to work!
You ask and get ask and get ask and get. Then you are asked to give, you cry foul.
Why threaten, just do. Dont hire anymore in germany period and make all new models outside the country. Let attrition take down the workforce. You are bound to get at least 5% per year.
Michelin did this when france threatened to nationalize the company. The company is run by conservative catholics out of Switzerland...
it's economics.
wages in germany are the highest in the world.
I got the point. I agree it's about economics-not unions. With a global market, labor prices will tend to equalize. Some countries will go up and others (like Germany) will go down.
"Tens of thousands of employees of...DaimlerChrysler are expected to down tools..."
Well, that's pretty hard to swallow.
>Union or not, you can't compete with .20 cent/hr labor. You
>can't work for that, can you?
Sure you can Bob. You're being a luddite in insisting that we Americans live in weather-proof houses with indoor plumbing and running water.
If the American worker would only agree to place his/her children in the workforce at age 13, live in a tent, and eat every meal off the McDonald's 99 cent value menu...$0.20 is a living wage.
Auslanderarbeitsenden.
I think that should be the "official" word, since the emphasis is then placed on the workers over seas not the overseas location. And neocon arguments to the contrary, it is labor rates that is advancing this particular plague around the world.
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