GRAMMER
Employees protest against carve-out plans / Proposal to split company into separate legal entities / More job cuts?
Armed with drums and whistles and accompanied by representatives of the metal workers union, an estimated 1,500-2,000 employees of automotive seat manufacturer Grammer (Amberg / Germany; www.grammer.com) staged a protest march against management’s plans to split the company into several separate legal entities.
As part of the carve-out scheme that CEO Rolf-Dieter Kempis said would facilitate transparency, the auto supplier also is said to be weighing cancellation of a supplementary agreement with the workforce that could result in less favourable working conditions. Plans in place for the Immenstetten / Germany site are believed to include expanding weekly working time to 40 hours and abolishing holiday pay, Christmas bonuses and piecework supplements.
At the protest meeting, works council chairman Udo Fechtner warned against the transformation of the public limited company into new companies with limited liability, as this would overturn a job security pact running until 2010. Fechtner said he suspects the management board may be considering relocation to eastern Germany to save money at workers’ expense. In any case, it seems fairly certain that job cuts will exceed the 780 already planned up to 2009 – see Plasteurope.com of 19.02.2008. In the company’s financial report for Q3 2008, Kempis hinted that "further measures" to increase efficiency might be necessary in response to the economic slowdown.
Up to now, Grammer has maintained that the crisis in the automotive industry has had very little impact. Management still expects sales for full year 2008 to pass EUR 1 bn and earnings to be in line with the annual target. Compared with the first half year, however, sales and earnings figures showed a clear downward trend in the third quarter, declining to 238.6m in July-September 2008 from EUR 243.1m in the 2007 time frame. Group EBIT eroded to EUR 1.7m in Q3 from EUR 2.7m a year earlier. Earnings figures for the first two quarters were EUR 8.2m and EUR 13.7m respectively.
Divisional figures show Automotive sales slipping from EUR 174m and EUR 177m respectively in the first and second quarters of 2008 to EUR 149.6m in the third quarter (EUR 162.6m in the 2007 period). Similarly, Seating Systems’ Q3 sales, at EUR 93.6m (EUR 88.4m in the 2007 quarter), fell short of the EUR 102m and EUR 108m reported for the respective first two quarters of 2008.
As part of the carve-out scheme that CEO Rolf-Dieter Kempis said would facilitate transparency, the auto supplier also is said to be weighing cancellation of a supplementary agreement with the workforce that could result in less favourable working conditions. Plans in place for the Immenstetten / Germany site are believed to include expanding weekly working time to 40 hours and abolishing holiday pay, Christmas bonuses and piecework supplements.
At the protest meeting, works council chairman Udo Fechtner warned against the transformation of the public limited company into new companies with limited liability, as this would overturn a job security pact running until 2010. Fechtner said he suspects the management board may be considering relocation to eastern Germany to save money at workers’ expense. In any case, it seems fairly certain that job cuts will exceed the 780 already planned up to 2009 – see Plasteurope.com of 19.02.2008. In the company’s financial report for Q3 2008, Kempis hinted that "further measures" to increase efficiency might be necessary in response to the economic slowdown.
Up to now, Grammer has maintained that the crisis in the automotive industry has had very little impact. Management still expects sales for full year 2008 to pass EUR 1 bn and earnings to be in line with the annual target. Compared with the first half year, however, sales and earnings figures showed a clear downward trend in the third quarter, declining to 238.6m in July-September 2008 from EUR 243.1m in the 2007 time frame. Group EBIT eroded to EUR 1.7m in Q3 from EUR 2.7m a year earlier. Earnings figures for the first two quarters were EUR 8.2m and EUR 13.7m respectively.
Divisional figures show Automotive sales slipping from EUR 174m and EUR 177m respectively in the first and second quarters of 2008 to EUR 149.6m in the third quarter (EUR 162.6m in the 2007 period). Similarly, Seating Systems’ Q3 sales, at EUR 93.6m (EUR 88.4m in the 2007 quarter), fell short of the EUR 102m and EUR 108m reported for the respective first two quarters of 2008.
27.11.2008 Plasteurope.com [212291]
Published on 27.11.2008
German version of this article...