Tuesday June 16, 09:53 AM
German power group E.ON to cut 9,000 jobs
FRANKFURT (AFP) - Germany's biggest power company E.ON plans to slash 9,000 jobs as part of a belt-tightening drive aimed at saving 1.5 billion euros (2.0 billion dollars), a newspaper said.
The cuts included 6,000 European posts along with 3,000 others that would go as some of the group's activities were relocated, Die Welt said, quoting Sven Berglin, an official with the Verdi union who is a member of E.ON's supervisory board.
The group, which employs around 90,000 people in Europe according to Die Welt, said through a spokesman that "nothing had been decided yet."
Talks continued with Verdi and another union, IG-BGE, the spokesman added, but Berglin told Die Welt that E.ON managers have not excluded outright firings.
"That is not acceptable given the billions (of euros) in profits" that E.ON continues to report, Berglin said.
E.ON posted a first-quarter 2009 net profit of 2.5 billion euros, an 18 percent increase, mainly owing to an accounting gain of 1.5 billion euros.
Verdi has called on E.ON workers to demonstrate Thursday at the group's headquarters in the western city of Duesseldorf, and expects 4,000 protestors from seven countries, Die Welt said.
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