"That can't be done with us," said a verdi spokeswoman. The implementation of staff reductions was the topic at a meeting of 350 karstadt store stewards in willingen, hesse, which ended on wednesday.
"People are worried," verdi spokeswoman says. One wonders how the sales tasks could be managed in the future in the face of new challenges. More speeches are planned.
At present, it is still unclear how many employees could actually have been affected by the job cuts, the spokeswoman said. The union feared that a high number of part-time workers could cause up to 3,000 of the total of around 25,000 karstadt employees to lose their jobs.
A company spokesman pointed out that the planned number of 2000 job cuts are full-time positions. The karstadt spokesman did not want to provide any further details. The company had announced its intention to rely on social contracting for the "primar" job cuts planned until mid-2014. The department store chain was taken over out of insolvency by investor nicolas berggruen two years ago.
A few days before the expiry of the collective restructuring agreement at karstadt, company boss andrew jennings announced to the employees last week that he would take a "hard line" in the further restructuring of the company. "I said from the beginning that after years of decline karstadt would not be a "quick fix"" is. All such expectations are unrealistic," said Jennings.