Stockholm - The main blue-collar union at Swedish heavy- vehicle maker Scania has approved a plan to introduce a four-day working week to cut costs but to avoid layoffs, tallies said Wednesday. The proposal was backed by 60 per cent of the union's some 2,500 members at Scania's main Swedish production plant in Sodertalje, south of Stockholm, IF Metall said.
IF Metall that comprises the Swedish Industrial Workers' and the Swedish Metal Workers' Union was to meet with management to hammer out details this week.
Local union leaders earlier questioned the move to cut salaries and proposed - to no avail - at last week's shareholders' meeting that a planned dividend to shareholders should be lowered instead.
The white-collar union at Scania earlier supported the shorter working week.
Scania chief executive Leif Ostling was also to see a 10 per cent salary cut for the coming two quarters.
Last month Scania reported that almost all its pre-tax profits vanished in first-quarter 2009 due to lower deliveries and shrinking demand.
Scania has trimmed its production workforce to about 10,000 employees, and most work daytime shifts. The group is also to continue its staff training programmes.
Ostling has said that shorter work weeks were preferable to shedding staff, citing previous experience that showed that when markets and production pick up it was very costly to rehire workers who had been laid off earlier.
Another Swedish vehicle maker, Volvo Cars, which is owned by US group Ford, in March agreed on a cost-saving package with local unions to postpone salary revisions for 2009.
