Germany doesn't want to call on Nokia

In Germany, punishments are being invented for the Finnish concern that is closing its plant in Bochum

The business optimization carried out by the Finnish concern Nokia has caused the most political protest in Germany. A number of politicians, including Angela Merkel's cabinet ministers, are calling for a boycott of Nokia products in response to the Finns' decision to close production in the city of Bochum. And tomorrow a mass protest is expected here.

The Finnish leader in the global mobile phone market announced its intention to close down its production site in Germany last week. The dismissal includes 2,300 full-time employees of the plant in Bochum, hundreds of temporary workers, and related enterprises will also suffer. The concern's management explains its decision by "strong pressure (from the market - Ed. ) to reduce costs." HR chief Juha Jarkräs confirmed that the phone assembly from Bochum will be relocated to Romania. In this country, Mr. Jarkryas noted, there are a number of “enormous advantages,” and first of all, “people there work for a tenth of the wages that are paid in Germany.” A Nokia board member is confident: “Even if salaries there double or triple in the coming years, it will be profitable for us to work there.”

Meanwhile, trade unions raised the company's staff to protest. Tomorrow in Bochum, as expected, the largest protest rally in the history of this city will take place, which will attract over 20 thousand people from all over Germany. At the plant itself, a 24-hour ban on overtime shifts was announced on Saturday and Sunday—from 10 p.m. on Saturday to 10 p.m. on Sunday. Trade union actions, as is not so often the case, are also actively supported by politicians. Jürgen Rüttgers, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Bochum is located, said people's faith in the social market economy was under threat and pledged his support in the fight to save the Nokia plant. The first conversation between the authorities and Nokia management took place at the end of the week in Berlin. Negotiations are taking place behind closed doors. It only became known that the Minister of Economy of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Christa Toben, warned the Finns about the inevitable collapse of the image of the Nokia brand, as happened in the scandal with Siemens phones after the closure of the BenQ plant in Kamp-Linforth in the same state. And the head of the state government, Rüttgers, called on the Finns to accept the proposal of the company’s staff in Bochum on a possible revision of wage rates. Minister Christa Toben threatened that Nokia, if the Bochum production site is transferred outside Germany, will have to reimburse the subsidies paid to the concern from the state budget in the amount of 41 million euros.

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück also made public criticism. “A company that makes such a decision on the basis that its profits are not 20 but 15%, and refers to large wage costs when in fact they represent less than 5% of all costs, must understand that all these arguments sound extreme. unconvincing,” Deutsche Welle quotes him as saying. - As a result, she loses people's trust. And this has long-term consequences.”

The first Germans to declare a loss of trust in Nokia were politicians. Among them, these days it is considered good manners to announce your refusal of the Finnish telephone. “I am not in the habit of calling for a boycott of goods,” Social Democratic Party leader Kurt Beck said in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag tabloid on Sunday. - But for me, as certainly for many, many Germans, as of this week the name Nokia has ceased to be so resonant. For me personally, the Nokia phone no longer exists. I don’t want to constantly remember this incredible trouble during telephone conversations. We can all make it clear that we will not allow anyone to do whatever they want to us. There are 82 million consumers in Germany.” Consumer Protection Minister Horst Seehofer also announced his refusal to use a Nokia phone.

However, many in Germany have no illusions about the social responsibility of business and consider the inalienable right of a private company to decide what is profitable for it and what is not. Deutsche Welle cites the words of German Economics Minister Michael Gloss, who believes that Germany benefits greatly from globalization, and therefore it “will have to come to terms with the not-so-pleasant sides of this process.”

The European Commission can also provide support to the workers of the closed Nokia plant. True, just the other day its head, Jose Manuel Barroso, called for “understanding” of Nokia’s intentions to curtail production in Bochum. If the concern can transfer jobs from Finland to Germany, he reasoned in an interview, then it should be possible to transfer production from Germany to Romania. There are very different opinions about what kind of support Brussels can provide to the closing plant. In any case, Germany will not be able to take advantage of the “globalization fund” created in the EU to smooth out such situations, because subsidies from it are allocated only in cases where jobs are massively transferred outside the European Union. In the case of the transfer of production to Romania, from the point of view of Brussels, jobs have not “disappeared” anywhere. Therefore, Barroso considers it possible to make payments to the victims in Bochum from EU social funds.

Yuri Shpakov, Berlin