German carmaker Daimler reaches no-layoff guarantee at key German plant

Daimler reaches labor deal at Sindelfingen plant

FRANKFURT — German carmaker Daimler AG has reached an agreement that gives job security until the end of 2019 to 37,000 employees at its biggest plant in Germany, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Layoffs will be ruled out under the deal, details of which will be announced at a news conference on Thursday, Daimler spokesman Joerg Howe said.

Howe added that, as a result of recently announced plans to move the production of Mercedes-Benz C-Class cars out of Sindelfingen, Daimler had made future commitments for other models.

“Due to these decisions, we can avoid layoffs until 2019,” he said.

Daimler said last week that it would move the plant’s C-Class production to Bremen, Germany and Vance, Alabama starting in 2014 as part of plans to cut manufacturing costs and take advantage of a growing U.S. market for its luxury vehicles.

In return, Sindelfingen will get production of the SL sports car from Bremen. The Sindelfingen plant also builds other models like the S-Class and E-Class.

Sindelfingen, near Stuttgart, has some 20,000 production workers and another 17,000 employees in areas such as research and development. Less than 4,000 currently work on C-Class production at Sindelfingen.

Shares of Daimler were down about 1.3 percent at euro34.91 ($51.32) in Frankfurt afternoon trading.

On the Net:

www.daimler.com