Germany: Thyssen-Krupp shareholders receive millions while workers face the sack

[Hannah Bell]

ThyssenKrupp, Germany’s largest steel and armaments enterprise, has recently announced even harsher measures to reduce costs as part of the radical restructuring of the corporation...far more jobs are to be cut than the 3,000 initially announced, with harsher cuts in wages and benefits also being implemented.

Four weeks ago, union officials and works council delegates justified their agreement to the restructuring plans, which are to reduce costs by €500 million a year, saying that they had forced the board of directors to sign a joint “position paper” that was supposed to rule out compulsory redundancies. Just a few weeks later, management...met with the works council members at the corporate headquarters in Düsseldorf and told them the March 27 plan was worthless.

...The close collaboration and integration of the unions and management are aimed directly against the workers. Both claim that in view of the devastating effects of the international steel crisis, drastic measures and the dismantling of jobs and social benefits are unavoidable.

However, the unions and works council are concealing the fact that despite the planned sackings and savings of €500 million, the directors have agreed to pay out a dividend of €669 million to shareholders this year, the same as in the preceding year...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/thys-m02.shtml


Concentration camp $$$

Thyssen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Thyssen

Kruppp: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp

[seemslikeadream]

1. probably why folks are a bit angry there

Getty Images 9 hours ago
Leftist demonstrators throw cobblestones as they clash with police during a so-called "revolutionary" May Day demonstration in Berlin on May 1, 2009. Some 484,000 people gathered for peaceful May Day rallies across Germany, unions said, but police were bracing for more pitched battles after nightfall with and between far-left and far-right groups.

Getty Images 10 hours ago
Leftist demonstrators of the "black block" parade before clashing with police during a so-called "revolutionary" May Day demonstration in Berlin on May 1, 2009. Some 484,000 people gathered for peaceful May Day rallies across Germany, unions said, but police were bracing for more pitched battles after nightfall with and between far-left and far-right groups.



Getty Images 17 hours ago
Anti-fascist protestors block the sation to prevent neo-nazis from demonstrating during a Mayday demonstration in Ulm, southern Germany, on May 1, 2009. Germany is bracing for its biggest May Day protests in years amid fears of a rise in social unrest caused by the worst recession since World War II in Europe's biggest economy. The international day of the worker has for the past two decades been accompanied in German cities by street violence and clashes between far-right skinheads, anti-fascist groups and police.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. A couple of the firms that MADE Hitler...

Don't expect any compassion from them.