FRANKFURT/STUTTGART (Reuters) - Over 30,000 DaimlerChrysler employees in Germany stopped work Thursday to protest plans by the carmaker to make Mercedes staff work longer, employee representatives said. Some 20,000 workers at the Mercedes plant in Sindelfingen near Stuttgart took part in a protest that started at 7 a.m. GMT, DaimlerChrysler's works council said, joining 3,000 night-shift colleagues who walked out in Hamburg, Berlin and Duesseldorf.þþAround 10,000 walked out at Untertuerkheim, another Mercedes site near Stuttgart, one of Germany's wealthiest regions.þþDaimlerChrysler is seeking to save 500 million euros ($617.5 million) in annual personnel costs at Mercedes, its most profitable unit, but employee representatives have so far agreed to measures yielding only 180 million.þþThe group said Monday it might cut 6,000 jobs at the Sindelfingen plant and shift some production of the new C-class Mercedes model within Germany and abroad if employees continued to oppose deeper cost cuts.þþThe dispute comes as pressure mounts on western European employees to work longer and take fewer holidays to prevent jobs disappearing to cheaper locations in less developed economies.þþDaimlerChrysler is following a lead set by manufacturing and technology giant Siemens AG, which last month clinched a deal with trade unions to raise working hours at two German plants to 40 hours a week from 35 without extra pay.þþFrench President Jacques Chirac said Wednesday French workers should be able to work more than 35 hours a week and told the government to hold talks with companies and unions about easing restrictions on work time to boost competitiveness.þþDaimlerChrysler's works council said the disruption at Sindelfingen could mean the company loses production of about 800 vehicles Thursday. Its shares fell 0.4 percent to 36.24 euros by 0940 GMT, slightly underperforming the DJ Stoxx European autos index.þþHOURLY BREAKSþþUnion officials expect as many as 80,000 DaimlerChrysler workers to take part in the nationwide protest Thursday.þþOne of the stumbling blocks is the company's attempt to end a 30-year old agreement giving workers the right to a five-minute break from the production line every hour.þþIn practice, the breaks are no longer taken individually but saved up and tacked onto annual holiday.þþ``You take away our breaks, we'll take away your peace and quiet,'' read one of the placards at the Sindelfingen protest.þþThe company has threatened to move production of the new C-class, due in 2007, to its more efficient Bremen plant in northern Germany and to its East London factory in South Africa and would drop plans to build derivative models.þþDaimler sold about 281,000 of the C-class models last year, making the Mercedes mid-sized luxury car one of the brand's two top selling lines.þþSaturday, the company lost production of more than 1,000 vehicles, according to the works council, after about 12,000 workers in Sindelfingen failed to show up for their shift to protest against the cost-cutting plans.þþ
Source: NY Times
