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Germany: phone workers protest plant closure |
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Getty Images/Tom Niedermueller
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Cell phone manufacturing workers demonstrate October 6 at the headquarters of Siemens in Munich, Germany. The workers, members of the IG Metall union, went on strike over the announcement that parent company BenQ would close its factory in Kamp-Lintfort, in North Rhine-Westphalia state. BenQ announced it would stop funding its German division just before it filed for bankruptcy protection September 29, and announced the layoff of 3,000 workers. Siemens, which retracted a 30 percent salary increase for bosses in face of workers’ outrage, announced October 6 that it would pay laid-off workers while they retrained for new jobs. BenQ, Taiwan’s biggest cell phone manufacturer, says it lost $762 million since taking over German operations of Siemens in October 2005. Unionists are planning sympathy strikes at other Siemens factories across Germany, and a rally at its headquarters October 19.
—OLYMPIA NEWTON Related articles: On the Picket Line 15,000 strike at Goodyear plants in U.S. and Canada Scotland garment workers strike for wage increase Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home |