News type
Date end
News memo
On 08 May 2018, and to great relief, especially for staff at the Görlitz (Saxony) engine production site operating under threat of closure, Siemens announced that a principle agreement had been signed with its central works council and the IG Metall union, which addresses the company’s restructuring plan for its troubled Power and Gas (PG) and Process Industries and Drives (PD) divisions that specialize in engines and mechanical drives. The agreement includes plans to maintain and extend the Görlitz site. In addition, the social partners signed a ‘Pact for the Future’ in which they commit to ‘shaping structural change for the future together’ and which intends for the establishment of a new lifelong staff training fund. Siemens HR head, Janina Kugel underlines that this pact also defines ‘a framework for essential restructuring’. In November 2017 the German industrial manufacturing giant announced 6,900 redundancies across its global energy division, including 3,400 within Germany. According to the HR head, all parties agreed that struggling business divisions’ had to slash costs but that ‘cut and dried’ job losses were to be avoided as much as possible. IG Metall has emphasized its desire to maintain the ‘Radolfzell’ agreement that specifies IG Metall agreement is a necessary condition before direct job losses and site closures at Siemens can proceed. The trade union added it would be submitting ‘alternative proposals’ during what will likely be tough and imminent negotiations over arrangements for the restructuring plan and which are due to conclude by the end of September.
Source Info
News date