Daimler preserving 37,000 jobs

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Daimler reaches agreement on preserving 37,000 jobs

Posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 2:24 PM EST.(Employee News)

Daimler AG workers reached an agreement with managers to preserve jobs at the Mercedes-Benz car plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, until 2020, ending a standoff over plans to shift some production to the United States, Bloomberg reported.

The 37,000 workers at the factory in the southwestern German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg will face no mass firings over the next 10 years, the automaker’s works council said today in an e-mailed statement, the news service said. Daimler, the world’s second-largest maker of luxury cars, said Dec. 2 that production of its best-selling Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan would be moved to Alabama, ending the model’s assembly in Sindelfingen after more than 25 years, the story said. Unions demanded a guarantee that no employees would be fired, Bloomberg said.

The carmaker will create 2,700 positions in Sindelfingen by manufacturing seats, producing light-weight chassis components and shifting production of the SL-Class roadster from a plant in Bremen, Germany, the works council said and the news service reported. Daimler also will improve conditions for early retirement and won’t limit the number of older employees allowed to work part-time starting in 2015. The company will continue to offer voluntary buyout packages to limit the number of people affected by the C-Class shift, which is due to take place in 2014 in an effort to cut costs and reduce the effects of changes in the dollar-euro exchange rate, the story said. (Bloomberg)