Saturday, July 17, 2004
Fresh walkouts halt Mercedes production in Germany
Associated Press Berlin, July 17
Thousands of DaimlerChrysler workers walked off their Saturday shifts, extending protests against the automaker's threats to cut jobs in Germany unless employees accept steps to cut labor costs.
Some 14,500 workers took part in stoppages at two Mercedes plants near the company's German base at Stuttgart, halting production of some 1,000 vehicles at the Untertuerkheim plant alone, employee representatives said.
DaimlerChrysler workers across Germany staged walkouts and protest rallies on Thursday, prompting an appeal by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for employees and management to allay the dispute, though he said he would not get involved.
DaimlerChrysler chief executive Juergen Schrempp expects an accord soon, he was quoted on Saturday as saying.
"I am confident that we will have a solution shortly," he said in an interview for the Welt am Sonntag newspaper. "We are in constructive negotiations. But we don't want to discuss publicly what we have achieved so far."
DaimlerChrysler says labor costs at its plant in Sindelfingen, near its German base at Stuttgart, are higher than at another German factory in Bremen. The company has threatened to move production of future Mercedes-Benz C-class model cars to Bremen and South Africa unless it gets
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.