Bosch employees protest at three locations

Stuttgart, Munich For the future Bosch boss Stefan Hartung, Friday morning should offer a foretaste of the most difficult topic of his term of office, which begins on January 1: The resistance of employees to the downsizing in the course of the group’s restructuring in the direction of electromobility is growing. The employee representatives no longer want to accept the previous strategy of promoting job cuts location by location, even in the case of smaller plants, as without complaint as before.

On November 9th, Lutz Welling, managing director of the Bosch plant in Arnstadt, brought his employees together for what was probably the last staff meeting. The manager had bad news to report. At the end of the month, the production of generator regulators at the location in Thuringia will unfortunately have to be stopped, Welling said, according to information from several participants. There is a lack of orders.

The background: electric cars do not need classic alternators, Welling asked for understanding and announced that the 103 affected employees would be released from December 1st. However, the majority of employees do not see this. They refer to the existing collective agreement, which is supposed to secure the location until the end of 2022.

“I do not accept paid leave”, 79 employees wrote to Welling a few days later in so-called assertions and insisted on their “employment entitlement”. The Handelsblatt has an example of one of the letters. If all those involved insist on their point of view, the cases should soon end up before the labor court. It would be the next escalation in a conflict that extends far beyond the small production facility in Arnstadt.

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After all, hundreds of Bosch employees in Munich and Bühl in Baden are currently worried about their jobs. The works council and the union have called for protests this Friday at the three locations and are calling on their people at all other branches to express their solidarity and to drive to the rallies in buses despite Corona. The employee representatives accuse the management of the world’s largest automotive supplier of undermining the values ​​of the company’s founder Robert Bosch.

“Bosch breaks the collective agreement and the law in Arnstadt”

“At Bosch it was always said: Better to lose money than trust. What was once promised is inviolable. These principles now seem to no longer apply, ”criticized Kirsten Joachim Breuer from IG Metall in Erfurt. “Bosch is breaking the collective agreement and the law in Arnstadt. The group wants to dispose of the employees in the storage room. We will not accept that without resistance. “

Those are tough tones from the employees too. Because Bosch has actually suffered at the union, because staff reductions here are in most cases more socially acceptable than in listed corporations.

Specifically, Breuer is outraged that, from his point of view, Bosch has by no means exhausted all measures to maintain production in Arnstadt. For example, the group has been brushing aside proposals for the establishment of new products for years.

Bosch contradicts this representation. The company is sticking to agreements, said a spokeswoman. Rather, the Swabians see no alternative to ceasing business in Arnstadt and do not want to give employees false hopes. “We are aware of our corporate responsibility – in intensive discussions with the social partner, we are committed to examining the necessary measures and exhausting opportunities for continued employment,” says HR manager Filiz Albrecht the Handelsblatt.

Alternatively, those affected would also be offered jobs in Eisenach and Ansbach in Bavaria. “In the demanding transition period to sustainable mobility, we are faced with different challenges and future opportunities at our locations – at the same time we have to maintain our competitiveness in the market,” emphasized Albrecht.

Those affected do not see it so matter-of-factly: “When entire locations like Arnstadt and München-Berg am Laim are closed, when 1000 employees are to be cut at the Bühl location, then we are shocked and ask ourselves what the social structure and values ​​are like Bosch stands, ”says General Works Council Chairman Frankl Sell to the Handelsblatt. He will be on stage himself in Munich on Friday.

Nobody denies that structural change at Bosch requires great efforts. But one cannot accept that this is at the expense of the employees. “We demand a fair transformation – with the employees in focus,” says Sell.

He also says: “What we cannot accept is that the areas of production and development that have made money for Bosch over decades – and still earn today – the areas that made many future investments possible in the first place were not The future should have more. “

Sell ​​called on the corporate management to secure jobs through cross-location and cross-divisional transfers. Of almost 395,000 employees worldwide, 131,827 people were working in Germany at the end of 2020. That was 3116 fewer than in the previous year. This year, the job cuts are likely to be even more pronounced in view of the collapse in car production in the wake of the delivery bottlenecks and the pandemic. Bosch did not make any specific statements about this.

More: Bosch sells plant in Göttingen and examines closure in Munich

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