Mayor urges HMR to reconsider job cuts

16 January 1998 17:00  [Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (CNI)--Frankfurt mayor Petra Roth has called on management at Hoechst's pharmaceutical business, Hoechst Marion Roussel, to reconsider their plans for drastic job cuts, CNI has been told.

Roth addressed a mass demonstration at the company's Höchst site in Frankfurt on Friday morning. Her office could not be contacted by CNI Friday, but a source at the demonstration said she urged HMR to think again and offered to meet employees.

The source also said Hoechst's works council chairman, Arnold Weber, claimed the job cuts were illegal because the works council had not been notified before they were announced. He promised that the works council would fight the plans in court, the source claimed.

An HMR spokesman said the "goals" announced were not legally a "decision" and hence not contrary to German law. "What we have as a target has to be negotiated upon in the country organisations."

HMR now had "serious potential buyers" for its penicillin business at the Höchst site, in which 300-400 people are employed, he added. These employees are not included in the target of 600 job-cuts in Germany, announced Wednesday.

 

By: Grace Williams
+44 208 652 3214

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