Industry and work: Siemens builds in Eintracht around and from time to time

When Siemens announced the dismantling of around 6,000 jobs worldwide in March, the criticism from the employee side was sharply. The tone changed four months later: HR Judith Wiese, overall manager Birgit Steinborn and the second chairman of IG Metall, Jürgen Kerner, sit at a table in the corporate headquarters and show harmony and optimism. You not only have to announce an agreement, but also three: a transformation agreement including a million -dollar funds, an agreement for the part of the job removal that affects Germany and clear tariff improvements for around 11,000 previously disadvantaged employees.

“The fact that we are in three here to explain the way forward has never been the case,” emphasizes Steinborn. By way to the front, she means above all the transformation agreement. “We want to actively shape the rapid changes that we look forward to,” Wiese describes their goal. For a group like Siemens – with several dozen operated in Germany alone – the German Works Constitution Act is a bit bulky. “We therefore looked for solutions together how we get faster without infiltrating the participation.”

From one place to another instead of the company

“We are working on attitudes and transfers on a cross -location cooperation between the local works councils with the company side,” says Steinborn as an example – and Kerner speaks of “finding solutions in which people do not leave the company, but go to position a on position”. To do this, people have to qualify, emphasizes the trade unionist. “This can be a role model for the change process in the whole of German industry.”

It doesn’t work for nothing. “The board knows that transformation is not available for free. Siemens can cost Siemens to the agreement on the agreement over the next five years, with which further training is to be financed – in addition to the approximately 200 million in normal expenditure for training and further education. “An important signal that we invest in our employees and their skills,” Wiese says the sum and plans as a whole, an “absolute commitment to the Germany location”.

The three keep themselves relatively covered with details of the transformation agreement, which also contains aspects of corporate culture and diversity. However, it also affects the plans for the compensation for the planned job cuts, which Siemens has agreed with the general works council. Around 2,500 jobs are to be lost in the weakening digital industrial division in Germany, another 250 in the shop with charging solutions for e-cars.

“We separate between the places that are broken down and the people sitting on it,” says Steinborn. In other places such as the Smart Infrastructure and Mobility divisions, jobs would be set up. “Our focus is to support transfers – and also through financial incentives.” As a positive example, you can see Leipzig, where 160 jobs in the charging solutions are eliminated. More than half of the employees concerned were able to offer an alternative position, mostly at the same location.

Wing is likely to remain the same in the balance

“The old way to accompany people with decent conditions from the company was also expensive,” emphasizes Kerner. “The money is much better invested when we look, how can we further train people so that they can stay in the company.”

How many people in the end only change the position and how many leave the company does not yet know, says the overall manager. “My assessment is that despite the current job removal measures, the size of the workforce in the balance remains the same. We have many years – even if it is an enormous structural change.” At Wiese it sounds similar: “Netto is still stable or rising in Germany. We are a technology company that grows and wants to grow faster. Also in Germany. With our employees.”

More money and less work

11,000 of these employees can look forward to more money for less work in the future. So far, they have been under the “special agreement” that the German Siemens workforce has long separated into a two class society and, above all, affected employees in the Siemens branches.

Over a period of five years, employees are led to the level of the metal and electrical industry’s level, as Kerner says. In essence, it is less and more money by almost two hours of weekly working hours. The poorer treatment was no longer conveyable.

In the past, the agreement had justified, says Wiese. “Today, 20 years later, with changed qualification profiles, she no longer has it, and that’s why we cut this old braid. And also take money into our hands.”