Daimler gives undertaking on jobs

Daimler, the German-based car and commercial vehicle maker, has guaranteed that there will be no compulsory redundancies in the near future among the 37,000 employees at its plant at Sindelfingen near Stuttgart.

Employees at the plant had protested against the company’s plan to transfer production of the popular Mercedes-Benz C-class model. Production was to have moved from Sindelfingen to Daimler plants in Alabama, USA, and in Bremen in Germany.

Under the terms of the deal, which was signed by management and the elected works council in Sindelfingen on 10 December, C-class production will be transferred in 2014, but Sindelfingen will keep the E- and S-class models and will also be given other work.

This allows management to guarantee that there will be no compulsory job losses before the end of 2019 at the earliest. Works council chair Erich Klemm said the works council was “pleased that we can secure jobs at Sindelfingen over such a long period”, and Jörg Hoffman from the union IG Metall, added that the deal had only been possible because of the “pressure of the workforce”.

However, although there will be no compulsory redundancies, the company made clear that it would use other methods such as natural wasteage and voluntary agreements to make “the adjustments required to remain competitive”.