The sky above the marketplace suddenly turned red yesterday. The cause, however, was not the clouds over the city, but hundreds of red balloons that participants in a demonstration loved to fly. The works council of rudolf-erich muller gmbh& co KG (REMOG) and the IG metall trade union
Schweinfurt had called for this demonstration to draw the public’s attention to the threatened loss of jobs at the company.
Solidarity expressed
The employees of the company, almost all of them wearing red T-shirts with the inscription REMOG, IG metall caps on their heads, red balloons in their hands and blowing whistles, marched from the company premises via bundesstrabe and veit-stob-strabe to the market square in front of the town hall. Delegations from numerous companies in schweinfurt, bad neustadt and other towns were already waiting for them there. Among others, delegations from SKF, siemens, preh and ZF sachs came to show their solidarity. The IG metall youth was also present.
"We are REMOG, we are fighting for our jobs", the chairman of the works council, edgar schneider, emphasized. Boos echoed through the marketplace when he noticed that mayor helmut blank was absent. He recalled that the company once had 400 jobs, now just 81. "We contribute to the well-being of the population through our earnings. Every job loss also rubs a hole in the city sack". It could not be that in the current good times in the metal and electrical industry jobs are being cut. "We are loyal to REMOG and the company", he emphasized. And "we are a top company". Today, 70 percent of the company’s turnover is generated by aerospace technology "but one of our main customers is pulling out more and more and outsourcing production to others," he said.
Personnel policy is totally wrong
The chairman of the works council pointed out that in recent years short-time work and wage cuts, as well as rapid job losses, had placed a heavy burden on employees and made them feel insecure, while the metal industry was experiencing a boom. The company’s personnel policy had been totally misguided, for example only 25 of the 81 employees were under 50 years old. Further staff cuts threaten the company. "We are here, we are loud, because they are stealing our work", he shouted to the demonstrators. And "we have lost confidence in our management, but we are still fighting for our company"." Ten years ago, the mayor promised us his support during a visit to the town hall "i am demanding this support for us today. Act on the management and persuade them to reverse their decision."
Boos against missing mayor
The first representative of the IG metall union, edgar kippes, was also harshly critical of the REMOG company boss. He is an "entrepreneur who does nothing, but who owns everything". He pretends that it is a question of pleasure whether he will go on. It could not be that a single person had to be kept happy so that it would go on. At the discontent in the
People like wilfried muller are partly to blame "if you have to sue for overruns in 2018, you’re no longer an entrepreneur, you’re just a taker." Every job at REMOG in munnerstadt is also important "for the bakery opposite or for the craftsmen in the town". Otherwise, the situation here would be like in other areas, where the young people have to move away because there are no industrial jobs and only the older ones remain. He promised "this action is not a closing point, but a signal for the future."
Demand: sell the company
Jens oser, trade union secretary at REMOG, called wilfried muller "an employer like I have not met in the last 30 years". The management has completely lost the trust of the staff, he said. He asked the owner to sell his company if he no longer wanted to run it.
Workers from several other large companies came to munnerstadt to show their solidarity with their REMOG colleagues. A speaker alluded to the "munnerstadt" play, saying that the town survived the swedish attack in 1641. Munnerstadt will also outlive mr. Muller."