BMW wins concessions from unions in Germany

[Kirby]

[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]GM & USA Unions could learn a few things about teamwork from BMW & employees...


Article

Germany, vilified as a stagnant economy suffocated by a rigid labour market, celebrated a new-found flexibility at the weekend when its chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, opened BMW's most innovative car plant, in Germany's moribund eastern region.[/font] [font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The €1.3bn (£890m) Leipzig plant, which will eventually employ 5,500 workers in a city where the official unemployment rate is now 22%, can operate between 60 and 140 hours a week - a broader span than any other BMW plant including the Mini factory in Oxford - because of wide-ranging concessions from unions and employees.[/font]

[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The initial 2,000 workers, who will produce 160 BMW 3-Series cars a day, will work a 38-hour week, compared with 35 hours in BMW's three Bavarian plants, and will receive no overtime bonuses when the working week is extended. The goal is to turn out 650 cars a day.[/font] [font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]The staff will get the same basic pay as western colleagues but earn considerably less.[/font]

[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]Around 150,000 people applied for the 5,500 jobs.[/font]

 

[aNoodle]

Damn...I miss that 35 hour week when I worked in London. :-(

Well, German companies' corporate structures are much different than ours in the US. Their companies have entire boards representing interests other than stockholders: employee labor, community, etc. It's kinda interesting to look at other approaches and models of capitalism....it's not always a race to the bottom.

 

[deutsch100]

There was a big article on the front page of the Los Angeles Times on Monday 16 May 2005 about this. It is incredible for the people of former Eastern Germany, where the jobless rate is around 15-25%.

The article hints that BMW would have benefited financially much better, had they opened the new plant in the Czech Republic (as originally planned), but BMW knew how this would look image wise, as their own country needs the investing. There is a huge pool of skilled, able and willing workers in eastern Germany. Another one of their reasons for staying in Germany, is that they feel that the time and money saved in translating everything from German to Czech was worth it. Quality is much easier to control, when everyone is speaking the same mother language.

I am proud of BMW. My family still lives in E.Germany (in and around Erfurt), and this is a needed boost. First VW opened their amazing see thru factory in Dresden (when I lived there, I would always watch...it is so cool), then Rolls Royce opening a factory in Arnstadt (have lots of family there) and now BMW in Leipzig/Halle

Ich bin ein stolzer Ossi!!!