Mercedes proposes a 10% salary reduction compared to the previous ERTE, which the unions reject

The unions of the Mercedes plant in Vitoria-Gasteiz have rejected the new Temporary Employment Regulation File (ERTE) presented by the management because it lowers the conditions of the previous one. Specifically, the management has proposed a salary reduction of 10% with respect to the previous ERTE, which, like this one, was motivated by the problems of supply of parts, as explained by a CCOO representative to eitb.eus.

The committee and the management have met for the second time to negotiate the new 30-day ERTE until June presented last week to the unions after the previous file ended on December 31.

As detailed by the representative of CCOO, the company has transferred the “final offer” with a salary reduction of 10%. The management has argued the ERTE in the supply problems that lead to an “increase in costs”.

The company claims that the reduction of the production program in 2021 due to problems with the supply of parts, added to the increase in other types of costs such as logistics, make it unfeasible to maintain the same conditions, according to union sources.

The negotiation of the file will end on February 4. In this regard, the management has warned that it awaits an agreement on the conditions presented because if the consultation period ends without it on February 4, it would apply the ERTE “without compensation for the workforce.”

In this sense, they have specified that in the previous ERTE the workers received 80% of the salary and 100% of pay and vacations and now 70% of the salary would be collected and 100% of pay and vacations would be maintained.

For its part, UGT considers that the economic deterioration “cannot be assumed by the wages of the workers”, and that there are groups that are going to suffer in the event that these conditions are applied.

At the meeting, the company reported that “today production can only be guaranteed for two days next week”, UGT has advanced.

In any case, it is not something definitive, and they will confirm it this Thursday through an official statement, when they report on the evolution of the “last efforts to attract supplies”.

According to UGT, “incomprehensibly they are going to activate three Saturdays in February”; something that the trade union center points out that the management will also confirm this Thursday in the statement.

The management hopes that these production Saturdays will be worked on, unless there is a suspension of the day on a weekday in order to guarantee the launch of the new projects and the 158,000 units for this year, he added.

Therefore, we will have to wait for this Thursday’s meeting to know definitively if it will take place next week in full.

The uncertainty in the supply of semiconductors has caused various stoppages in production in recent months at this company, the largest in the Basque Country as it directly employs some 5,000 people.

The last important stop took place at the end of last year, from December 17 to January 3. The objective was to collect parts due to the lack of regularity in the supply of chips.