BERLIN--then Thomas Haebich started working on the assembly line at Daimler-Benz AG two decades ago, he thought he had a job for life. But he no longer feels he can count on it.
On the contrary, today the 40-year-old auto worker often fears that he might lose his job at the car plant in the southern German town of Sindelfingen. He is convinced that on the long run German companies will not be able to compete with the emerging automobile industry in Asia.
"Only last year, Daimler paid compensation for 3,000 workers because they wanted them to leave the company," Haebich said. "If you look ahead another 10 years, China will push forward on the automobile market in such an aggressive way that we will no longer be able to beat their cheap products."
Haebich works weekly rotating shifts at the assembly line that makes the Mercedes E-class model, installing pedals and brake systems on up to 260 vehicles during a regular eight-hour workday.
Technically he has a 35-hour week, but in practice he works 40 hours a week and then gets to take compensatory time off when the company has fewer orders and not enough work to keep all 22,000 employees at the Sindelfingen plant busy.
Haebich became a member of the IG Metall union when he joined Daimler-Benz--now DaimlerChrysler AG--at age 20. He earns $4,682 a month pretax--after all deductions he has $2,118 left to cover his living expenses. By German law, Haebich has to have health insurance, pays into a pension fund and also deposits money into a life insurance fund offered by Daimler.
He worries that he will not get by on his compulsory pension fund once he retires.
"It would make sense to start an additional private pension but I can't really afford that," said Haebich, who is married and has an 11-year-old daughter.
He blames management for his worries. "They knew for a while that resources were getting scarce and more expensive--why didn't they invest much more in new technologies for cars that use less fuel?"
DaimlerChrysler agreed in May to sell 80.1 percent of its money-losing U.S. unit Chrysler to the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP in a $7.4 billion transaction, paving the way for a streamlined Daimler to concentrate on its luxury Mercedes brand and its truck business.
Haebich also said he can see the impact of globalization at work every day.
"The pressure to perform for new markets around the globe is constantly getting more intense," he said. "And while they used to hire workers on fixed-term contracts before, today they try to get by with cheaper temp workers."
Haebich is glad that he has a full-time contract but keeps telling his daughter that she will not be as lucky as he was.
"I always tell her: By the time you're grown up you must be flexible," he said, "even if that means taking a job in China."
