Workers at Daimler's biggest car factory in Germany have struck a deal with managers that secures their jobs for 10 years, a guarantee that brought an end to a dispute over moving production to the US.
All 37,000 employees at the Sindelfingen plant, which makes Mercedes-Benz limousines, will not face any forced redundancies until the end of 2019, Daimler said yesterday.
The deal is unusual even in a country where similar agreements for shorter periods were common before the financial crisis. It shows the lengths executives were prepared to go to secure the support of the powerful IG Metall union for moving production of the best-selling Mercedes C-Class saloon from the 94-year-old factory to Tuscaloosa in the US. Daimler is to create 2,700 new jobs to compensate for the move.