The dispute over the future direction of the DaimlerMain plant in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim is enclosed. For more than 400 million euros, the site is to become a campus for Electromobility be rebuilt. In the plant, electric motors, batteries and complete drive systems are to be developed and built on a much larger scale than previously planned, Daimler announced on Friday. Daimler also wants to manufacture battery cells there itself – at least in small series – in the future.
In return, there is no production volume in the area of combustion engines. All in all, this will ultimately also cost jobs – but the group did not name a number. In previous reports, workers had spoken of up to 4,000 jobs that could be lost by 2025.
Mercedes-Benz develops and manufactures engines, transmissions and axles at the company’s headquarters on the Neckar. This means that the plant is much more affected by the transformation of the industry than, for example, vehicle production in Sindelfingen. Most recently, 18,000 people had worked at the Untertürkheim plant.
Company and works council had argued for months about the future of the location. In the dispute over the austerity course, the management around CEO Ola Källenius (51) threatened the employees with the end of the planned competence center. The works council insisted that compensation in the form of other production orders should be created for the work that was lost in the course of the switch. The group did not deny the agreement, but sticking to the status quo was no alternative in view of the worsening situation, argued the board of directors in November last year.
Recently, things went much better for the car manufacturer. So at the end of February, Daimler took last summer negotiated reductions in working hours prematurely and announced that it would now pay the employees a profit-sharing bonus. This is a reaction to the unexpectedly good business development in 2020 and the current good market development, the group had explained.