Thousands of employees of German automotive supplier ZF are protesting against planned layoffs at the company. Some 3,000 people are expected at the company’s headquarters in Friedrichshafen on Tuesday.
“We are taking this action because we have to defend ourselves against this frontal attack on the working population in Germany,” said a works council spokesperson.
Workers at a factory in the western German city of Saarbrücken, which currently employs 10,000 people, are also taking part in the day of action, while workers in the southwestern city of Mannheim wanted to protest in a column. “We are calling on management to withdraw the layoff plans,” said the IG Metall union in Mannheim.
ZF announced plans in late July to cut up to 14,000 jobs in Germany over the next few years. The company currently employs around 54,000 people in the country. The extent of the redundancies at its 35 locations will be “specified in the coming weeks,” the board of directors said at the time.
“We cannot separate ourselves from the difficult conditions in the automotive industry, such as the delayed start-up of e-mobility and the high production costs, especially in Germany,” said Lea Corzilius, ZF Board Member for Human Resources.
She added that ZF had to be made fit for the future and that the sites in Germany had to be developed in such a way that they would be sustainably competitive.
