Financial Times FT.com
Telekom braces for strikes as pay talks fail
By Gerrit Wiesmann in Frankfurt
Deutsche Telekom was yesterday bracing itself for a potentially
crippling strike from as early as next week after unions broke off
talks about pay cuts, which the telecom says are vital to regain
competitiveness.
Frank Bsirske, head of the Verdi services union, said management had
"thrown down the gauntlet" and the union would now respond by
"balloting members and preparing for industrial action" in the coming
days.
Mr. Bsirske's call to arms may intensify an already bad-tempered dispute.
Protestors stormed a staff event being held by Ren Obermann, Telekom
chief executive, in a Hamburg theatre yesterday, forcing security
guards to intervene.
Mounting rancour throws into question a cost-cutting package through
which Mr. Obermann hopes to save 5bn ($6.8bn USD) a year by 2010. Lower
costs and lower prices are aimed at winning back clients currently
defecting.
Investors took fright at the prospect of a third profit warning in the
space of a year -- one that Telekom officials fear could result in Mr.
Obermann leaving a post he took over in late 2006 from a predecessor
himself ousted by shareholders.
Telekom stock closed 0.9 per cent lower at 13.36, only a touch above
levels seen in November when the German government and Blackstone
private equity, the group's leading shareholders, installed Mr
Obermann.
Like other former state phone groups, Telekom has been losing
traditional fixed-line customers.
But it has not been able to offer broadband and mobile services
cheaply enough to curb the defection of customers to nimbler
rivals. Mr Obermann wants to cut costs by moving 50,000 of Telekom's
180,000 German staff to lower-paying subsidiaries. Verdi allows rivals
to pay call-centre and other services employees 40 or 50 per cent
less, he contends.
Telekom initially wanted a 12 per cent pay cut by January 2010 and an
extension of working hours from 34 to 38 hours a week. A few days ago,
it tabled a revised offer that called for a 9 per cent cut over the
same two-year period.
But union officials walked out of talks with the former state monopolist
late on Thursday, describing the new offer as unacceptable. "We are
miles from any accord," said Lothar Schrder, Verdi's chief negotiator.
The union's national executive last week gave its all-clear for a
ballot of Telekom staff affected by Mr Obermann's plan -- some 30,000,
according to Telekom, given the proportion of civil servants left at
the group.
Company officials said they expected workers to come out in favour of
a strike. This would enable Verdi to escalate the dispute as Telekom
shareholders meet for their annual meeting in Cologne on Thursday.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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Gerrit Wiesmann, Financial Times (financial-times@telecom-digest.org)