German car maker Volkswagen has warned that 30,000 jobs could be lost at its six German plants unless staff accept a two year pay freeze.
Unions argue a freeze is unacceptable, demanding instead a 4% annual rise.
Volkswagen says it needs to save 500m euros in costs to guarantee the future of its 176,000 strong German workforce in the face of growing competition from rivals operating out of low cost eastern European markets
German-US car giant DaimlerChrysler is offering to cut executive pay in order to end a dispute over cost cuts.
Staff at the firm’s German plants have downed tools in protest at the plans to move jobs abroad unless 500m euros ($620m; £330m) in savings can be found.
But now the company says that its board members will accept a cut in pay if employees back down
Thousands of workers at the engineering giant Siemens have staged rallies throughout Germany in protest against the threat of jobs moving abroad.
“Staff have been told to work 40 hours instead of 35 a week for the same pay or else production will go elsewhere,” a union official told BBC News Online.
Hartwig Oertel of IG Metall said staff walked out of their factories on Friday and held rallies for an hour or so
Ernst Welteke, the president of Germany’s central bank, has resigned following investigations into a hotel stay paid for by Dresdner Bank.
The row started after a news magazine reported that Mr Welteke and his family accepted a 7,600-euro ($9,200; £5,000) free stay in Berlin’s top Adlon Hotel.
Mr Welteke was at a celebration of the euro’s first year as a cash currency
Music giant Bertelsmann may have to pay up to $1bn to two internet businessmen after losing a breach of contract lawsuit.
A California jury awarded the payment to two men who helped put together Bertelsmann’s 1995 merger with web portal AOL Europe.
Bertelsmann later sold half its stake in AOL Europe to Time Warner for $6