Reminds of an occasion in my youth when the German metal workers went on strike just as my W123 200 engine in effect blew up [at 2000 miles :-( ].
No replacement engines in stock, either in Germany or Britain, so had to wait over two months for a fix. Wasn't really Merc's fault but, after a shouting match, got them to agree to pay half the rental of the emergency car, a BMW 3... (I was aiming for 100% payment, of course.)
DAS
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PS. I heard (also on the BBC) that not all east German workers are so happy about the strike, as they know full well that this could be a job-killer in a region already short of jobs. Not all workers are joining the picket lines.
DAS
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Is 10.8 million really that much considering his position? I wonder what he pays in taxes.
Given the worldwide recession as well as the rapid movement of manufacturing from high wage to low wage countries I also must question the logic employed by the union. The logic is not obvious to me.
Perhaps the union will be far more successful than they imagine by reducing the workweek of their members to zero.
..
One can argue about such wages - fact is he gets the most money a CEO of a German company listed in the DAX gets, second one gets SAP CEO Henning Kagermann with 7.5 million Euro, and only third is CEO of Deutsche Bank Josef Ackermann with nearly 7 million Euro, average of DAX CEOs is close to two million Euro.
I am definitely _for_ god money for good work - but I seriously doubt Schrempp and his buddies do deliver good work (last V-class a flop with terrible quality, A-Class launch - aka Moose-test, Smart, W203 has to undergo facelift in autumn etc. pp - the list is much longer).
In my mind the union is crazy - more than 4 million German unemployed, other companies returning from
35 or 36 weekly work hours to 38 or 40 and they do strike for a 35 hour week... ===:-(((
If they go on with their wrong way it would be no surprise for me (don`t get me wrong, I have nothing against unions, but what they do at the very moment definitely is wrong).
And today (Monday) 10.000 BMW workers do have to stay home because of the strike (German language article at
Juergen
Now we know why Schrempp et al wanted to buy into Chrysler -- they wanted the obscenely high wages paid to CEOs of big American companies...
DAS
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YOU said that! ;-)
Juergen
"Juergen ." hat in Betrag news:3EF63AB1.7E07B2C0 @bigfoot.com dies gedichtet:
I can very well understand your point. OTOH the differences between east german and west german work tariffs do carry a little bit of Apartheid in them IMHO. AFAIK currently they are negotiating a contract which will lead to a similar amount of working hours in east and west by 2009 - this is in seven years. I can understand that the Unions are angry. They have agreed upon small wage raises in the past years in order to maintain more jobs, but the employers cut jobs instead. Now their patience is over.
Frank
In order to de-escalate the situation and to revitalize negotiations with the employers, the metalworkers union has decided to pause the strike in the ZF gearbox factory in Brandenburg/East Germany. BMW and VW plan to keep up their usual production scheme by Friday.
Frank
In English we use coins rather than medals...
;-)) DAS
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