Thousands of employees at the Munich truck manufacturer MAN are worried about their jobs.
In order to get movement in the faltering discussions, the parent company VW is now intervening.
At the Munich truck manufacturer
MAN
, 9,500 jobs are at stake.
The situation has recently come to a head.
The works council accuses the group of
uncompromising
and put the talks on hold.
But now the negotiations could go into the next round - thanks to help from
VW
headquarters.
Munich - The stalled discussions about the planned job cuts at the Munich truck manufacturer
MAN are
moving again.
"The negotiations are to be resumed in the coming week," said a person familiar with the processes to Merkur.de *.
A corresponding announcement is expected on Friday (November 20th).
For this day, the works council has invited employees at the German-speaking locations to a virtual works meeting.
MAN
CEO
Andreas Tostmann
is also
expected there.
It would be his first appearance in front of the employees since the company announced a comprehensive restructuring program at the end of September.
According to the plans,
MAN
wants to cut
9500 of the total of 36,000 jobs, the
Wittlich
(Rhineland-Palatinate),
Plauen
(Saxony)
locations
and the plant in
Steyr
in Upper
Austria
are to be closed.
From the main plant it is said that so far Tostmann has "avoided explaining his plans to those affected".
Now he has to "finally show the flag himself".
In addition,
MAN’s
mother’s
Volkswagen
*’s chief
human resources officer
,
Gunnar Kilian
, will
apparently
speak
on Friday
.
Before his appointment to the
VW
group board, the
trained journalist was
among other things managing director of the
VW
group works council at the headquarters in
Wolfsburg
* and is therefore also highly regarded by the employees.
The
MAN
works council surprisingly put the ongoing talks with management on the restructuring last Wednesday (November 11) on hold and accused the management board of a lack of willingness to compromise.
The company had even after seven sessions "not a millimeter is moving," said
MAN
-Betriebsratschef
Saki Stimoniaris
.
MAN: VW HR Director Gunnar Kilian mediates
In order to get the stalled negotiations going again,
VW
Labor Director Kilian
intervened
last week.
Observers see this as an indication that the
MAN
board could now be ready to cut fewer than the initially targeted 9500 jobs.
However, the parties face very difficult talks.
According to reports,
IG Metall
in particular
vehemently
rejects
a new works agreement and is pushing for a collective agreement instead.
The trigger for the tough stance was the surprising termination of the location and job security agreements by the
MAN
management at the end of September.
According to the regulations, redundancies for operational
reasons were
actually excluded
at
MAN
until 2030.
However,
with a view to millions of losses
, the
MAN
executive board withdrew the so-called bad weather clause and terminated the agreements.
This means that redundancies for operational reasons would be possible again.
The move was considered a taboo break in the consensus-oriented
VW
empire.
MAN: IG Metall is pushing for a watertight solution
In view of this experience, the union is now working towards a collective agreement.
From a legal point of view, collective agreements are “considerably more difficult to terminate” than company agreements and are therefore more secure, but they require the consent of the union members.
The core component of the new set of rules should be the exclusion of redundancies for operational reasons.
The central cornerstones should be before Christmas, they say.
They want to make the downsizing as socially acceptable as possible.
These included early retirement regulations, severance packages, partial retirement and special regulations for employees with restrictions.
Conversely, in
addition to extensive staff
cuts,
MAN
also
wants
to stipulate the elimination of extra tariffs for work on Saturdays, for example.
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital editorial network.