- 565 delegates elected employee representatives to the Supervisory Board of
Mercedes-Benz Group AG - Chairman of the General Works Council, Ergun Lümali, and Deputy Chairman of the General Works Council, Michael Häberle, re-elected
- New to the Supervisory Board: Gabriela Neher, Works Council Representative Mercedes-Benz Rastatt Plant, and Michael Peters, Works Council Chairman Mercedes-Benz Bremen Plant
565 delegates elected the employee representatives to the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG on 14 March 2023. All elected company and trade union representatives are members of IG Metall. Up to four lists were up for election in this Supervisory Board election.
Gabriela Neher, Works Council Representative at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Rastatt, and Michael Peters, Works Council Chairman at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Bremen, were elected to the Supervisory Board for the first time. Elke Tönjes-Werner, who retires, and Michael Brecht, Chairman of the General Works Council of Daimler Truck AG and Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Daimler Truck Holding AG will no longer be members of the Supervisory Board.
“On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I would first like to thank Elke Tönjes-Werner and Michael Brecht. In the last years, both have decisively shaped the work of the Board with great commitment. I wish them all the best for the future. At the same time, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the newly elected members of the Mercedes-Benz Supervisory Board and congratulate the employee representatives who have been confirmed in their positions. As the Supervisory Board, it is our most important task to support Mercedes-Benz in emerging stronger from the transformation. I am convinced that the joint committee work will remain very constructive and trusting in the future, despite and precisely because of the different expertise and perspectives.”
Dr. Bernd Pischetsrieder, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG
“For our common future, it is important that rights to co-determination and to have a say are used sensibly in the interest of the workforce – also and especially on the Supervisory Board. We see the strong support and trust of the workforce in our work as a mandate that we gladly accept. Strengthened and with confidence we tackle the tasks ahead of us. On behalf of the employee representatives, I would like to thank Elke Tönjes-Werner and Michael Brecht for their inspiring, constructive and trusting cooperation and their enormous personal commitment.
Ergun Lümali, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG
The employee representative body on the Supervisory Board consists of ten people: six company representatives, three trade union members and one representative for the executive staff. The election of employee representatives to the Supervisory Board is done through an indirect, two-stage election process. First, the workforce elects election representatives (delegates). They in turn elect the members of the Supervisory Board. The elected members of the employee representation for the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG will take up their committee work after the Annual General Meeting in May. The new term of office lasts a maximum of five years and ends with the Annual General Meeting in 2028. All elected members of the employee representation for the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG were also elected to the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz AG with immediate effect.
Employee representation on the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG
Company representatives
Ergun Lümali began his professional career in 1979 with an apprenticeship as a construction mechanic at the former Daimler-Benz AG in the Sindelfingen plant. He has been a member of the Works Council since 1994. In 2008, he became Deputy Chairman of the Works Council at the Sindelfingen site and has been a member of the General Works Council since then. In 2014, he was elected Chairman of the Works Council at the Sindelfingen site and also onto the Supervisory Board. Since 2022, he has been Chairman of the Group and General Works Councils of Mercedes-Benz Group AG and Chairman of the European Works Council and of the World Employee Representative Council as well as Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG.
Michael Häberle completed his apprenticeship as a mechanic at Mercedes-Benz in Untertürkheim in 1986. In 1996 he graduated from technical college and in 2000 successfully completed a supplementary course of study in business administration. He has been on the Works Council since 1998 – becoming Deputy Chairman of the Works Council in 2017 and thus also a member of the General Works Council, of which he has been Deputy Chairman since 2022. Since 2019, he has been Chairman of the Works Council of the Mercedes-Benz Untertürkheim plant, Research & Development Passenger Cars, and has been a member of the Supervisory Board since 2018.
Michael Peters started in 1984 with an apprenticeship as a precision sheet metal worker at the Bremen plant. He then worked in various positions in the body shop and accompanied the introduction of MPS. In 2002, he was elected to the Works Council for the first time, and in 2010 was elected Deputy Chairman of the Works Council, thus also becoming a member of the General Works Council. Since 2014, he has been Chairman of the Works Council at the Bremen site and since 2019 a member of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz AG.
Monika Tielsch joined Daimler AG in 1987 in the spare parts department in Sindelfingen after training as a medical assistant. In 1998, she was elected to the Works Council for the first time. Since then, she has been representing the employees in the research and development department in Sindelfingen, since 2012 as Chairwoman of the Research & Development Coordination Committee. She completed her extra-occupational studies as a manager in socioeconomics at the University of Hamburg in 2017. A trained mediator, she is the Diversity Officer of the General Works Council and was appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board in 2021.
After obtaining a degree in business management, Michael Bettag completed a passenger cars management trainee programme at the Nuremberg own retail branch in 1987. From 1989 to 2002, he worked as a regional car salesman. In 2002, he was released from his regular duties to become a member of the Works Council and two years later was elected Chairman of the Works Council of the Nuremberg branch. This was followed in 2005 by his election as District Chairman of the South District, at the same time making him a member of the Branch Commission of the General Works Council. Since 2015, he has been Chairman of the Branch Commission and a member of the Supervisory Board.
Gabriela Neher successfully completed her training as a production mechanic at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Rastatt in 2015. During her training, she was elected youth and trainee representative and held this office for six years, three of them as Chairwoman. After her apprenticeship, she worked in the production of the A-Class and the GLA. In 2018, she was elected to the Works Council. Since 2022, she has been the Central Coordinator for Logistics, and in the same year she completed a part-time distance learning course to become a graphic designer.
Representative Senior Staff
Dr. Frank Weber studied mechanical engineering with a specialisation in production technology and metal forming at the University of Stuttgart and was a research assistant at the Institute of Metal Forming and Metal Forming Machines at the University of Hanover from 1988 to 1994, where he also completed his doctorate. His professional career at Daimler-Benz AG began in 1994 as a production engineer at the Untertürkheim plant. Since 2020 – after holding various positions in the company – he has been in charge of the BodyTEC centre in which the two previous centers Press Shop Network and Operating Material are combined. Since 2011, he has been Chairman of the Management Representatives at the Sindelfingen site. In 2013, he took over as Chairman of the Management Representative Committee of the then Daimler AG and has also been a member of the Supervisory Board since then.
Trade union members
Roman Zitzelsberger (IG Metall) started an apprenticeship as a machine fitter in 1984 at the then Daimler-Benz plant in Gaggenau, after which he worked there as a measuring technician and machine operator and graduated from technical college with a degree in mechanical engineering. Even during his apprenticeship, he was involved in IG Metall as a shop steward and youth representative, and in 1989 he started working as a trade union secretary in Gaggenau. In 1996, he was elected Second Authorised Representative and in December 2003 Chief Authorised Representative of IG Metall in Gaggenau. In 2011, he completed a Master Degree in Management at the Malik Management Centre in St. Gallen. Since December 2013, he has been the District Manager of IG Metall Baden-Württemberg and negotiated the pilot agreements for the metal and electrical industry nationwide in the 2015 and 2018 bargaining rounds.
Nadine Boguslawski (IG Metall) trained as an industrial electronics technician and specialised in industrial engineering as a REFA technician. She was involved in workplace representation as a youth and trainee representative and Works Council member. Active in trade unions since 1997, she has been working for IG Metall since 2008 – first as trade union secretary in Hanover and Mannheim; later as collective bargaining officer in Baden-Württemberg. She has been the Chief Authorised Representative of IG Metall Stuttgart since January 2019.
Roman Romanowski (IG Metall) studied law at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen. He worked as a lawyer in Mannheim and Stuttgart and joined IG Metall Baden-Württemberg in 2012 as district lawyer, advising the union secretaries on labour law. In 2020, he was a specialist legal and compliance officer for the General and Group Works Council at Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG. Since 2021, he has been Head of the Legal and Data Protection Unit on the Board of Management of IG Metall, Frankfurt am Main.
Contact:
Katrin Dannenmann (General Works Council), +49 (0) 160 860 2501, katrin.dannenmann@mercedes-benz.com
Johannes Leifert (Company), +49 (0) 176 30 904 735, johannes.leifert@mercedes-benz.com