Daimler Workers Protest Against Relocations to U.S.

Jobs could move to factory in Alabama, union said

By Agence France-Presse

December 1, 2009

About 12,000 Daimler workers demonstrated on Dec. 1 against the possible partial relocation of output to a plant in the U.S., a works committee spokeswoman said. "Three thousand jobs are threatened" by plans to move production from Sindelfingen, in southwestern Germany where the rally took place, to a factory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, spokeswoman Silke Ernst said.

The Sindelfingen plant employs more than 28,000 workers.

Daimler executives might decide to move production of the Class C sedan in 2014, the works committee said.

The automaker declined to comment.

Daimler seeks to rebound from the global auto crisis in part through a cost-cutting plan that initially sought to save four billion euros (US$6 billion), an amount which could be raised before the end of the year.

Producing the car in the U.S. would also reduce foreign exchange effects that have weighed on Daimler's accounts.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2009