BP Europa SE has expanded its Mainz-Gustavsburg storage depot at Ginsheim-Gustavsburg (Hesse) During a construction period spanning two years the company has built a new tank with a storage capacity of approx 25,000 cubic metres which is to be used for the transshipment of Jet A-1 aviation fuel (kerosene) The new facility was officially opened with a festive ceremony today Email:  liz.danner@emeraldmedia.co.uk not a week has gone by without the automotive supply industry announcing hundreds of redundancies and the closure of entire plants Often structurally weak regions are affected where it is almost impossible to find a new job Continental will close its plant in Gifhorn (Lower Saxony) by the end of 2027 ZF Friedrichshafen is closing its shock absorber factory in Eitorf (North Rhine Westphalia) with 700 employees and the transmission plant in Brandenburg with 1,500 jobs is acutely threatened Jobs are also at risk at ZF locations in Saarland Schaeffler is cutting 100 of 500 jobs at its component plant for combustion engines in Ingolstadt Schaeffler plans to eliminate 1,300 of around 80,000 jobs worldwide in the next few months Marelli will close its plant in Brotterode where 900 employees manufacture car headlights Fehrer is shutting down its two northern Bavarian plants in Großlangheim and Wiesentheid by the end of 2024 which together employ 370 people and produce components and trim for vehicle interiors Otto Fuchs plans to cut 500 to 600 of the nearly 3,000 jobs in its automotive division in Sauerland (NRW) Magna wants to gradually close its rear-view mirror production in Dorfprozelten 250 of 450 employees will continue to be employed until 2027 The group had already shut down its plant in Bad Windsheim (also Bavaria) at the end of 2022 Lear is divesting its lighting and audio division and plans to eliminate 380 jobs in Kronach in northern Bavaria hundreds more workers who manufacture car seats fear for their jobs where 250 workers produced car seats for Opel-Rüsselsheim Other auto suppliers planning to cut jobs in the coming months are Stabilus in Koblenz and Joyson Recall and Waldaschaff in the Upper Main region of Bavaria This wave of layoffs has been going on for a long time the number of employees in the German automotive supply industry fell from 311,000 to 274,000 In many cases, those affected have fought for their jobs. For example, in Karben where Continental closed a plant with over a thousand jobs two years ago where they threatened an indefinite strike But workers always faced not only ruthless managers but also the IG Metall union and its company officials IG Metall (IGM) has enormous power in the car and supplier industries Many of its 2.17 million members work in this sector IGM officials and works council representatives sit on the supervisory boards of all large auto and supplier companies and are closely networked throughout Germany and internationally they occasionally organise protests and even threaten to “fight” so as not to lose control of the resistance refuse to mobilise support in other plants of the group or the industry and eventually sell out the jobs in exchange for a “social collective agreement” or the promise to delay the shutdown for a few months Without understanding this role of IG Metall social and job cuts requires a break with the union apparatuses and the building of independent rank-and-file action committees it is worth taking a closer look at the auto industry and its suppliers Hardly anywhere else is the bankruptcy of Germany’s much vaunted “social partnership” and the transformation of the trade unions into corporate co-managers and industrial police force so obvious The automotive sector is the most important industrial sector in Germany it turned over €411 billion and directly employed 786,000 people Three quarters of the turnover was accounted for by vehicle manufacturers one fifth (€80 billion) by the supplier industry the spare parts trade and other secondary sectors 2.2 million and thus 7 percent of all jobs subject to social insurance contributions are directly dependent on the auto industry the car industry is dominated by globally operating corporations to a degree almost without equal The supply chains extend across numerous national borders While less complex operations have been outsourced to low-wage countries in Germany alone 140,000 workers in the car industry are employed in research A large proportion of the cars produced in Germany are exported and Audi play a particularly important role German car companies generated two-thirds of their turnover abroad They also maintain numerous plants in other European countries 3.5 million passenger cars were produced in Germany itself and 9.6 million passenger cars of German group brands were produced abroad This international integration is even more pronounced in the supplier industry maintain plants at hundreds of locations in several dozen countries had been the world market leader in this sector has 400,000 employees in 60 countries and an annual turnover of €45 billion 140,000 of them work at 85 German locations Continental (number three in the world ranking) employs 241,000 people at 540 locations in 60 countries and ZF Friedrichshafen (number four) 150,000 at 230 locations in 40 countries Schaeffler is represented at 170 locations in 50 countries employs 92,000 people and is also a major shareholder of Continental there are numerous internationally active German suppliers whose names are hardly known to the wider public: Brose (Coburg) with 26,000 employees at 63 locations in 23 countries; Fritz Dräxlmaier (Vilsbiburg) with 75,000 employees at 60 locations in 20 countries; LEONI (Nuremberg) with 95,000 employees in 32 countries; HELLA with 39,000 employees at 125 locations in 35 countries These suppliers are constantly shedding plants and whole divisions and buying new ones in order to optimise their results and squeeze every last cent of profit out of the working class Some of them are also active in other sectors the supplier industry is increasingly coming under pressure from international competition only one Asian company was among the ten largest suppliers in the world there were already five from Japan and South Korea the Chinese battery manufacturer CATL is in second place behind Bosch The global battle for market share and profits has been further exacerbated by the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the Ukraine war which have led to supply chain bottlenecks Added to this is the switch to electric vehicles which requires high investment costs and devalues many elaborate technologies in which German companies were leaders the consulting firm PwC published a study according to which German automotive suppliers have lost a global market share of 2.7 percentage points since 2019—“as much as they were previously able to gain with difficulty in 20 years”—and are also in last place in terms of profit margin “Competitiveness is in acute danger—and things are already slipping.” The battle for global market share and profits is being ruthlessly fought on the backs of the working class the levels of exploitation are being increased and factory sections and entire plants that do not generate top returns are being shut down and unions are merging into a unified whole They are increasingly openly resorting to trade war measures and naked violence to gain access to raw materials which President Biden is using to subsidise US corporations to the tune of $430 billion under the pretext of climate protection and energy security is seen in Europe as a protectionist measure that puts European companies at a disadvantage The European Union and the German government are fighting back with the same weapon the electronics giant Intel alone is receiving government subsidies of €10 billion to build a chip factory in Magdeburg Another €10 billion are earmarked for two chip factories in Dresden And all this under conditions where the federal government has been arguing for weeks because allegedly a few billion euros to reduce child poverty cannot be found The US has imposed aggressive sanctions against China which are intended to cut off the country from pioneering technologies and thus slow down its economic rise Washington has ruled that the latest generation of microchips and machines for their production may no longer be delivered to China markets and profit is not only fought out with economic weapons While the wars of the US and its European allies in the Middle East during the last three decades were mainly about oil strategic raw materials such as lithium and rare earths are now at the centre of imperialist conflicts This is why NATO is ruthlessly fueling the Ukraine war and investing tens of billions to defeat Russia militarily Both Russia and Ukraine itself have large quantities of these strategic raw materials the nuclear power Russia is to be eliminated as a potential ally of China which has been officially declared a “strategic rival” by both the US and the EU The developments in the car and supplier industries show the whole irrationality of the capitalist system which Marx had already exposed in his main work Das Kapital The huge technological progress in the fields of information technology and renewable energies which play an important role in the auto industry does not serve to make work easier and solve social problems like the climate crisis but to increase the profits of corporations worth billions and to make the life of the working class unbearable technological innovations lead to social regression and war which threatens the continued existence of humanity The trade unions do not oppose this development Their transformation from reformist workers’ organisations into co-managers and corporate stooges began four decades ago with the globalisation of production During the economic boom of the post-war period when the production process was even more concentrated on a national scale they had pursued the strategy of extracting a “fair” share of growth for their members They often spoke of a “cake” that was to be shared and sometimes even organised strikes The globalisation of production that began in the 1980s knocked this possibility out of their hands The liberalisation of trade and financial markets were implemented under the governments of Ronald Reagan Lower costs of transport and the improvement of global communications enabled corporations to move production to countries where wages were cheap The unions responded by turning into corporate lackeys Although the “pie” is distributed much more unfairly today than it was 40 years ago—a manager in one of Germany’s top firms listed on the Dax earns 70 instead of 15 times as much as an average worker and large corporations make quarterly profits in the tens of billions—the unions deny any clash of interests between workers and capital They have subscribed to the neoliberal theory that the more profits flow Instead of fighting for the division of the national “pie” between labour and capital they are now fighting for a larger share of German corporations in the world market They are fighting for the competitiveness of “Germany as an industrial location”—even if this means layoffs lower wages and increased exploitation for their members They do this because they themselves profit handsomely from it A trade union official or a works council representative (who is relieved from working on the production line) earns much more than an assembly line worker In the metal and steel industries in particular union secretaries and works council chairmen are not infrequently rewarded at the end of their careers with company board positions that earn them a salary of a million eruos along with a fat pension This transformation of the trade unions is not limited to Germany with its legally enshrined “co-determination” (supposedly meaning employee representation in the factory and on the company board) The trade unions have an army of shop stewards in the factories and thousands of works council representatives paid by the companies They sit on the supervisory boards of large companies and with 220 full-time employees and an annual budget of €80 million conducts economic research and trains works council reps and trade union officials not only describes itself as the largest trade union in the world but its president Jörg Hofmann is also deputy chairman of the supervisory board of Volkswagen and a member of the supervisory board of Bosch He also goes in and out of the Chancellor’s Office and plays a leading role in regular meetings between the government in cooperation with the Hans Böckler Foundation holds an annual “suppliers’ conference” at which works council reps and union officials are sworn into their roles as co-managers Alarmed by the wave of redundancies in the supplier industry which took place on March 29 at the Maritim Airport Hotel in Hanover with the participation of Jörg Hofmann It was symptomatic of the transformation of the trade unions into corporate organizations IG Metall did not declare war on the insatiable corporate bosses and financial sharks who are driving the worldwide attacks on auto workers but begs them to use their help in the “transformation process.” For long passages the statement reads like the paper from a management consultancy providing advice to corporations on how to optimise their profits “that companies are not facing up to their responsibility to shape the future together with us as equals: Such elementary change processes only succeed together.” And: “Developing the industry for the future and shaping the transformation socially and ecologically are central tasks of politics The declaration calls on the companies to “work together with the works councils on new business models with future-proof products” when redesigning the product portfolio in the course of the transformation Workshops were held at the conference in which trade union secretary Dr worked to determine the “future viability of their location.” Menez who heads the “Transformation Team” in the IGM Stuttgart district That’s why works councils also have to name strategic goals.” The “Hanover Declaration” is imbued with a nationalism behind which even the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) pales Although most workers in the affected corporations are employed outside Germany and there are international works councils dominated by IG Metall in many of these corporations there is not a single word about the fate of these workers to which IG Metall sometimes paid lip service in the past has been replaced by the Saint Florian principle: “Please spare my house “The aim must be to maintain industrial value creation in Germany,” the statement reads “Structural change in the automotive and supplier industries must not be at the expense of workers in Germany.” And what about the workers in other locations the “structural change” should be at their expense IG Metall is also offering its services to companies in order to pressure the German government to take tougher trade war measures and to loosen up further billions in subsidies “Germany and Europe must also pursue active and strategic industrial policies so that Europe can become the lead market for a successful energy and mobility turnaround,” the “Hanover Declaration” says referring to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act IG Metall also demands support from the federal government in cutting more jobs: “Labour market policy instruments must also be made available to facilitate transfers to other companies if continued employment in the company is no longer possible.” It is obvious that jobs and social gains cannot be defended with a trade union that pushes the “transformation process” in close cooperation with the corporate boards The job cuts in the German auto and supplier industries are part of a comprehensive attack on the international working class which is further aggravated by the growing expenditure on armaments and war Gigantic sums are being poured into the renewal of nuclear arsenals the expansion of armed forces and the financing of the Ukraine war This money is to be squeezed out of the working class The “new era” announced by Chancellor Scholz can only be financed by cutting social spending and wages It should not be forgotten that Hitler was brought to power in 1933 by the bourgeois parties and authorised to establish a dictatorship in order to crush the workers’ movement and convert the economy to war production No one should believe that such a thing could not happen again Many large car and supplier companies are still owned by families like the Porsches who had become rich under Hitler through “Aryanisation” and forced labour Resistance to these attacks is developing everywhere only last week the 150,000 workers of the “Big Three”—Ford General Motors and Stellantis—voted by 97 percent to strike for better wages If this resistance remains under union control incomes and jobs requires a strategy that is irreconcilably opposed to the “social partnership” of the unions: This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page By 2024-09-19T10:51:00+01:00 Aldi Süd is to open a major new fresh produce distribution hub in south-west Germany in addition to two existing centres in Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia and another in development on the Lower Rhine it said it planned to open Frischeplattform Südwest a dedicated logistics centre for fruit and vegetables several of the retailer’s regional companies in the Baden-Württemberg region will be supplied with fresh fruit and vegetables “This means that Aldi Süd can supplement the network of fresh platforms with another long-standing partner and expert in the field of fruit and vegetables,” it said in a statement The group’s logistics concept for fresh produce aims to bring a number of different functions and services related to fresh produce into one central place – including imports and quality control – before those goods are delivered to regional companies makes logistics more efficient and can offer even more freshness and quality,” it continued “The fresh platforms in Ginsheim-Gustavsburg and Cologne are already in successful operation and a fresh platform on the Lower Rhine will also open in spring 2025 “The fresh produce platform for Baden-Württemberg is thus the fourth location for the successful Aldi Süd logistics concept.” Site powered by Webvision Cloud The expected tariff cost is significantly lower than the $4 billion to $5 billion crosstown rival General Motors estimates which Ford attributes to its higher mix of U.S.-built vehicles Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open You are visiting us because we have something you value Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism An account is an optional way to support the work we do. 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A GROUP OF Irish Travellers has been accused of bringing chaos to a German town overturned chemical toilets and widespread bemusement in their wake Last week around 5-600 people in over 100 caravans descended on the town of Ginsheim-Gustavsburg camping on a meadow across the Rhine from Mainz The Irish arrivals said they were undertaking a pilgrimage to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption on 15 August Police officers arrested a 43-year-old Irishman for the Hitler salute The rest of the German-language tv report shows cars skidding across fields loud music and shopkeepers chasing away groups of young people The local pubs enjoyed a bounce in takings from their Irish customers Residents initially complained about loud music from some campers in surrounding pubs, local news outlets reported Local demands for more police intervention caused their departure from their impromptu camping spot between the area between the Rhine and the Ochsenwiese police moved in last Sunday evening and the Irish visitors moved on the next day leaving behind a “battlefield” filled with rubbish bags The resulting mess led to arguments between the visitors and locals, some videoed by local media “We are glad that they’re gone,” local mayor Thies Puttnins-von Trotha told the Frankfurter Neue Press He said his administration would contact other municipalities and put an “early warning system in place” Create an email alert based on the current article