Struggle for the future of MV Werften: wage payments postponed

Created: 01/07/2022Updated: 01/07/2022, 3:20 pm

Trolleys hang on the gantry crane of the MV shipyard.

© Jens Büttner / dpa-Zentralbild / dpa / archive image

One of the world's largest cruise ships is waiting for its completion in the shipbuilding hall in Wismar.

But the future of the entire MV Werften Group with around 2000 employees is on the brink.

Wismar - The situation at MV Werften, threatened by bankruptcy, is getting worse. The payment of wages and salaries due on Friday for the approximately 2000 employees in Wismar, Rostock and Stralsund has been postponed until next week. “The heart would have gladly done it and the cash register would have allowed it too. We have 30 million euros in liquidity. But there are legal frameworks under which we were not able to pay the wages and salaries today ”, said managing director Carsten Haake on Friday after a staff meeting in Wismar. In addition, it became known that trading in shares of the Asian Genting Group, which the shipyards had acquired in 2016 for the construction of cruise ships for its own shipping companies, has been suspended on the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The background to the delays in wage payments is apparently the pending agreement on a rescue package that the federal and state governments have been negotiating with Genting Hong Kong for weeks.

Further talks are also planned at the highest level.

"We will join forces at the weekend and continue the negotiations that were conducted over Christmas and New Year," said Haake.

According to IG Metall, the stalled negotiations to save the shipyards are fueling great fears among shipyard workers.

“If politics and Genting don't agree, I don't have the imagination of how things can go on,” said union spokesman Stefan Schad the seriousness of the situation.

A general meeting of the union is planned for Monday to discuss further steps on the part of the workers.

According to Schads, around 1,600 shipbuilders are currently busy building the giant cruise ship “Global 1” in Wismar, the completion of which is in jeopardy due to the acute financial problems of the parent company Genting. The federal and state governments are ready to provide further assistance, but make new loans dependent on the shipyard owner's own contributions. However, the required commitments have not yet been made. Instead, the Genting Group tries to force the immediate disbursement of a state loan in the amount of 78 million euros in court.

As reported from government circles in Schwerin, the complaint that was surprisingly filed at the end of last year does not facilitate the talks. The country has already guaranteed loans amounting to 301 million euros and is also ready to provide further aid. But the red-red state government ties this to the fact that the federal government is also granting additional loan support in order to be able to complete the 1.5 billion euro cruise ship. The ship, designed for 9500 passengers, is three quarters ready, according to the government.

The federal government has meanwhile signaled that it is ready to continue to support the ailing MV Werften, but is demanding that the owner make a contribution. “We stand by the side of the company and its employees in order to get through this difficult time together. It is now only up to the owners to make an appropriate contribution, ”said State Secretary for Economic Affairs Udo Philipp of the German Press Agency. Genting Hong Kong is currently not ready for this. The owners lacked a clear commitment to their yard. "That is disappointing and endangers many thousands of jobs in the region," complained Philipp.

After the corona-related collapse of the cruise market in early 2020, Genting got into financial difficulties and the trend reversal expected for 2021 did not materialize.

Before Christmas, the federal government had agreed to grant a further 300 million euros from the economic stabilization fund to save the shipyards that are important for the structurally weak region.

In return, the Ministry of Economic Affairs demanded, according to dpa information, a contribution of 60 million euros from the Genting group, which earns its money primarily in tourism and gambling.

The ship was to be used as security for the federal financial injection.

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Shipyard boss Haake expressed himself confident that the "Global 1" can be completed despite the apparently still far apart negotiating positions.

“Hope dies last.

We are at a shipyard.

And we are used to the fact that there are sometimes difficult times.

I believe we will finish building the ship, ”he said.

The three shipbuilding companies belonging to the shipyard association had to survive several crises since the fall of the Wall and also experienced several changes of ownership.

The takeover by Genting in times of booming cruise tourism was considered a stroke of luck five years ago, because the group invested heavily, increased the workforce, paid according to tariff and commissioned many ships.

But the upswing was suddenly stopped by the corona pandemic.

dpa