The meeting was called by the Executive Committee of the Siemens Europe Committee, which was represented by Harald Kern (Chairman), Bettina Haller (Deputy Chair; both from Germany), Roy Lund (Norway; Speaker of the North West Region) and Ferran Navarro (Spain; Speaker of the South West Region). Hagen Reimer and Dirk Linder took part in the meeting representing IG Metall.

Harald Kern presented a concept for the future employees´ representation on European level for the new company Siemens Alstom Mobility. This concept would guarantee that there will be an employees´ representation on European level from day 1 of the new company. The new body of representation would be composed by representatives from Siemens and Alstom and would be following German law, because it would formally be attached to the Siemens Europe Committee. This would allow the body to act as a mere employees´ representation without management representatives and to make use of the support of the Siemens Europe Committee whenever necessary.

On the second part of the meeting, Mrs. Soussan, the CEO of Siemens Mobility Rolling Stock, assisted by Mrs. Ristelhuber (HR Mobility), gave some information about the management´s plans for the carve-out of the Mobility Division and the future merger with Alstom. The carve-out will not take place at the same date for all countries. It will start in May, but in some countries, it will not happen before October.

The employees´ representatives from several locations especially expressed their concerns about the unclear future of the employees of some support functions, that will be concerned by the carve-out. There are also worries of the employees about their future, especially in the countries like Spain and France, where Alstom is much bigger than Siemens.

The employees´ representatives addressed the demand, that the guarantees of employment, that have been agreed on for Germany and France, should be expanded to all European countries. The management rejected this demand, but also pointed out, that they don´t see too many risks for the existing jobs, because the mobility business is growing.

The employees´ representatives stressed that it is important, that there has to be specific information provided to the union representations at the concerned locations and not only general information for all employees. Mrs. Soussan and Mrs. Ristelhuber committed to provide this.

The employees´ representatives and Mrs. Soussan agreed that the issue of bringing together the different company cultures of Siemens and Alstom will be essential for the success of the merger.

(Dirk Linder)