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The eBearing News
November 8, 2004
INA Wants Longer Hours
for Workers in Germany
copyright © 2004 eBearing Inc.
INA Schaeffler KG (with FAG Kugelfischer, the bearing manufacturing operations of INA Holdings, Germany)
has turned the tables on its manufacturing plants in Germany, making an unexpected offer.
Rather than threaten more of the manufacturing job losses now roiling German industry, INA is offering
to not only save jobs but create new jobs in seven manufacturing facilities
across Germany and invest heavily in new facilities and equipment.
INA currently employs over 17,000 workers in its German plants.
But the offer has a price. INA will only commit to making the investments and hire more workers if employees
at the plants agree to have their workweeks lengthen from 35 hours at least to 38, but hopefully
to 40 in some plants. No pay increase is being offered for the additional hours beyond 35.
Germany's manufacturing economy has been in a tailspin; as one of the most expensive and at the same time
most restrictive places to do business in the world, the industrial economic recovery experienced by the
rest of the world is quickly passing Germany by.
Situated as it is, bordering other low-cost countries and their growing economies, Germany's strong trade
union and organized workers have been slow to react to and accept the globalization of manufacturing and
the loss of many manufacturing jobs to nearby Eastern European countries.
Even traditionally strong German operations -- Volkswagen, Opel, and Mercedes-Benz, in the auto sector --
have become dramatic examples of money-losing German operations in recent months.
INA already asked IG Metall -- Germany's most powerful trade union, representing most of INA's production
workers -- for work rule and hour concessions, but been largely rebuffed.
One major INA facility, in Lahr, has agreed to extend their workweek to 40 hours. At over 450,000 square feet,
Lahr produces specialty bearings and employs almost 2,000 workers. INA is now planning to invest more than
€ 60 million there in plant and equipment, and has promised to maintain employment through 2010.
As one of the area's largest employers, the future of the
Lahr plant is important not just to INA and its workers but the surrounding economy as well.
Opened in 1955, it originally manufactured bearings and cameras; (the company has not manufactured
cameras since 1961) and is still a keystone of INA's bearing manufacturing facilities.
Union representatives dismissed the Lahr vote for a longer workweek, claiming workers really had no other
option but to accept it and that INA would be cutting jobs there in any event.
Workers at FAG Bearing's Eltmann plant did not agree to a 38 or 40 hour workweek, but will have
their benefits cut equivalently. INA initially moved to shutter Eltmann, but backed away from the plan
after initiating he cost-cutting measures which will save nearly € 10 million there.
• article: INA closing Eltmann plant
• article: INA compromises on Eltmann plant shutdown
INA said that, in general, its costs in Germany will have to be reduced by 20% - 30% in order for its
manufacturing and the resulting products to remain competitively priced in the world markets, particularly
against facilities in Eastern Europe and China.
The company expects to increase the workweek in at least six of its German facilities. However, INA
pointed out each facility is different, produces a different product line, and will be evaluated
differently, particularly in terms of the workweek. The unions have argued that differing workweeks
are putting uneven demands on the workers; those working longer weeks essentially being pitted against
and at the same time subsidizing those working shorter weeks.
INA said it is focusing its more-hours-same-pay efforts particularly strongly on engine
bearing manufacturing, where cost and price pressures are highest.
Like Timken after its acquisition of Torrington, INA now has a much wider array of manufacturing
facilities, at all levels of operating and cost efficiencies, around the world. Within the organization, INA
has made it clear these facilities must consider they are effectively competing among themselves for future work.
Locations guaranteed to receive investment and employment boosts in the future are INA's plant in Romania
and two new facilities in China. Not only are these operations more cost-effective, but they are also located in
fast-growing bearing markets.
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- by Bruce A. Carr
from individual research,
tips and commercial sources.
Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered
trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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eBearing.com ... for everything that moves™
Entire contents Copyright © 1999-2008, eBearing Inc. All rights reserved.
eBearing.com and "... for everything that moves" are registered trademarks of eBearing Inc.
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