Siemens, union agree on some restructuring points

Industrial union IG Metall said Tuesday it had agreed with Siemens AG on some of the ground rules for talks surrounding the conglomerate's planned restructuring in Germany.

IG Metall said in a statement that it and Siemens, as well as the company's works council _ a type of shop stewardship committee _ agreed that there should be no outright layoffs in Germany, and no closure of Siemens sites until at least September 2010.

The company had indicated in the past it could make the planned reductions in German staff through measures including attrition.

Earlier this month, Siemens said it would cut 16,750 jobs, or about 4.2 percent of its global work force _ mostly administrative-related positions _ to streamline its operations in the face of a slowing economy.

Around that time, company officials said Siemens planned to reduce the 2,300 managers in Germany by about 8 percent, and the number of middle-level managers by about 4 percent from the current 23,000. The number of non-manager jobs to be cut from its 100,000-person German work force is about 3 percent.