Union negotiations lessen impact of ContiTech restructure

FRANKFURT, Germany—ContiTech will lay off a significantly lower number of people as part of its previously announced hose business restructuring thanks to negotiations with German trade union IGBCE.

The Continental A.G. subsidiary disclosed the reorganization program in 2022 with plans to consolidate the operations of its Mobile Fluid Systems business.

At the time, ContiTech said the restructuring was expected impact more than 900 employees across German sites in Waltershausen, Korbach, Northeim and the Oedelsheim/ Hannoversch Muenden production network.

In a March 15 statement, however, IGBCE said it had negotiated a deal with ContiTech to reduce the number of planned job cuts to 642.

"We agreed on innovative instruments that enabled a socially acceptable reduction in jobs," said Michael Linnartz, IGBCE's Conti Group and Hanover district manager.

The agreement, he said, "gives the opportunity to get by without compulsory redundancies and to offer the affected employees real alternatives and perspectives."

The new "instruments" include opportunities for partial-retirement, early retirement for employees aged 58 and over and use of the company's "internal labor market."

The Continental Institute for Technology and Transformation (CITT) also will offer further training and qualifications for all employee groups.

Under the initial plan announced in 2022, ContiTech said it intended to consolidate operations of the Oedelsheim/Hannoversch Muenden locations, spread across sites over 15 miles apart, in Oedelsheim.

The Oedelsheim site, it said at the time, would focus on "silicon manufacture and charge air hoses."

IGBCE said in its announcement, however, that the Oedelsheim site had been closed during the reorganization process.

In response to a European Rubber Journal query, Continental confirmed that it is closing the Oedelsheim site instead of the plant in Hannoversch Muenden.

"The change in decisions rooted in the necessary investments in the infrastructure for the preservation of Oedelsheim," the company said in a March 25 statement, adding that the continuation of Hannoversch Muenden is more economical.