Daimler Talks of Job Losses Unless It Gets Lower Labor Costs

TUTTGART, Germany, July 12 (AP) - DaimlerChrysler may move production of future versions of its Mercedes-Benz C-Class cars away from the company's biggest German plant - costing 6,000 jobs - unless it obtains about $620 million a year in cost savings from workers, company executives said Monday.þþGünther Fleig, the personnel chief, said workers at Sindelfingen, outside the company's Stuttgart base, must bring labor costs in line with those at factories in the north German city of Bremen and in East London, South Africa.þþOtherwise, C-Class model production will be moved to those plants ÿand the alternative would be we will have to part with 6,000 workers,ÿ most of them at Sindelfingen, Mr. Fleig told reporters. About 41,000 people currently work at Sindelfingen.þþJürgen Hubbert, the Mercedes-Benz chief executive, said that ÿthe Sindelfingen factory is not the most productive plant, by a long ways.ÿþþThe company is pressing its German workers to cut paid breaks and extra pay for late shifts and weekends before it will guarantee that the company will invest in further production, which is not expected to begin until 2007. Workers have offered to forgo a contractual rate of 2.8 percent scheduled for 2006, which would save about $220 million, but they have balked at deeper cuts.þþSimilar trade-offs of cost concessions in return for guaranteed work are common in the German auto industry and are usually negotiated without great fanfare. This set of negotiations has been more rancorous. Worker representatives have called for a nationwide day of protest by DaimlerChrysler employees on Thursday.þþþþ