Contents page 1 — Full down page 2 — “Power steam turbine from Görlitz” page 3 — “works councils to create and manage” page 4 — remains A bitter aftertaste On a page
Siemens’t read managers tend generally to large emotions. They usually occur in a sober and factual. The more surprising it is, in görlitz turbine plant of the group found a visibly good-humored site Manager. It is a Wednesday at the end of September. Relaxed Ronald Schmidt leans on an office chair and smiles. “Good,” was the mood in the factory, he says, personally, he would feel “simply good”.
Schmidt know in this Moment for a long time, what a few days later, officially, is: He and his Team will soon have a newly created business unit, with nearly 2,300 employees worldwide, in India, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the USA. The work is already well utilized, reported by Schmidt: “Now we can really get started.”
Hardly, if you consider what was going on almost a year ago here in Görlitz. 16. November 2017, the group announced that he was planning to close the turbine plant. About 900 jobs would be deleted. The production should be shifted to the Czech Brno and to Mülheim an der Ruhr. The cuts are necessary, said at the time of the group’s headquarters in Munich, for the future competitiveness of the power plant division. Schmidt’s Job, it would have been then, his work.
week long the news has dominated the headlines, the picture spoke of the threat of a “clear cut”. Even in the Bundestag, Görlitz was the topic. With almost 14 percent, it was the city with the highest unemployment rate in Saxony. In the case of the Bundestag elections, the AfD candidate had taken from the current Prime Minister, Kretschmer his mandate. “Antisocial” were the Siemens plans, had to leave the group chief Joe Kaeser to blame.
On this day, ten months later, everything is different. Since yesterday: The plant remains. More still: “Görlitz is turbines a centre of excellence for the worldwide business of Siemens industrial steam,” says Schmidt.
Görlitz city at the crossroads
The city
In the nineties, many companies are left Görlitz, and 15,000 people moved away. Finally, the city grew slightly to 57,000 inhabitants. Cheap Rents and the growing tourism sector. 3,500 people are still unemployed, almost every second for a year or longer.
The work
750 engineers and workers and 80 apprentices, Siemens engaged in Görlitz.
