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The story
It’s been reported that Mercedes-Benz’s board of management is dangling the threat of closing domestic German plants and halting investment in Germany. The move is said to be aimed at cutting roughly €800 million a year in costs, including reductions to the Christmas/holiday bonus and the annual profit-sharing bonus, with the board itself reportedly considering giving back part of its own pay. On the European forum Lemmy, many commenters doubted the announcement, calling it “just a bluff,” while others lamented the decline in Mercedes’ interior quality, and still others argued that protecting German domestic production actually serves Europe’s interests better — the discussion spread from labor-negotiation tactics all the way to a debate over the cars themselves.
Mercedes’ board of management is warning that it could close German plants and halt domestic investment.
> Mercedes wants its German employees to work longer for the same pay. The automaker is looking to scrap or cut special payouts like the Christmas/holiday bonus and the annual profit-sharing bonus. According to Handelsblatt, management is aiming to save €800 million a year this way. The board itself is reportedly also willing to give back part of its own compensation.
Source: electrive.com / Original article here
What people said
The Christmas/holiday bonus cut I can almost understand — I've always figured that one's just scraps tossed to workers to keep them calm. But wanting to scrap the profit-sharing bonus is what really shows their true intentions.
But it's got the illuminated interior trim! Don't you want to cruise around in a cabin that looks like a plastic vodka bar?
I don't get why anyone still buys that thing. Mercedes peaked in the 300D era — it's been garbage ever since.
I'd actually disagree. If you're thinking about Europe's own interests, it makes more sense to shut out American and Chinese automakers. The American ones are just too huge, and the Chinese ones cut costs by trampling on workers' rights. Better to keep production somewhere you can actually regulate properly yourselves.
Sure, well-regulated local production is better than handing everything over to the cheapest supplier on the other side of the planet. But nobody needs con artists selling overpriced junk as if it were a premium product, either.
They trashed that whole 'German quality' brand themselves decades ago. Honestly, China might end up building a more reliable Mercedes at this point.
I partly agree with both of you. Relocating would be a dumb move, but it's also entirely plausible these days — a lot of Mercedes parts are already made by Chinese suppliers or Stellantis anyway.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
In recent years, Germany’s auto industry has seen profitability decline due to the investment burden of the EV transition and the rise of Chinese manufacturers, with major automakers repeatedly announcing workforce cost cuts and reviews of production sites. The €800 million in cuts Mercedes has floated also targets benefits covered by labor agreements, like the Christmas/holiday bonus and the profit-sharing bonus; in Germany, with its strong unions and co-determination system, such announcements are often used as leverage in labor negotiations rather than reflecting genuine management decisions. The thread split over two questions: whether this ‘plant closure/investment freeze’ announcement is serious or just a bluff, and how to judge the decline in Mercedes’ interior quality. What makes this thread worth reading is how a conversation about labor negotiations ended up spreading into a debate over the quality of the cars themselves and the merits of protecting European industry.
※This article is excerpted and loosely translated by our editorial team from the Lemmy c/europe thread ‘Mercedes board threatens to close German plants and stop investments in Germany.’ Our site takes responsibility for the accuracy of this translation.
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