Restructuring events
European Restructuring Monitor (ERM)
The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
218 blue and white collar workers will be made redundant at Volvo’s bus body plant in Tampere, Finland. The transport manufacturer concluded negotiations on 22 April and the factory will be shut down by the end of August 2008 and operations will be moved to Wroclaw in Poland, where labour costs are appreciably lower. The outcome for the remaining 82 workers at the plant was not clear. When the announcement was made on 5 March 2008 it came as a surprise to workers in Tampere, who had not been prepared for such radical measures although a range of cost-efficiency and savings programmes had been in force at the plant for a couple of years. Volvo also has production plants in Finland in Turku and Lieto, and personnel negotiations in Turku are also possible. According to a statement issued by Volvo at the time, Volvo Buses currently have overcapacity in its European bus body production system and anticipates this will be the case also in the near future. "The intention is to adjust production capacity as a part of the strategy to strengthen Volvo Buses’ profitability. Volvo Buses' European bus body production system consists of the two plants in Finland, one in Wroclaw, Poland, and one in Säffle, Sweden. The plants in Tampere and Wroclaw both manufacture the Volvo 8700 bus model. The plant in Poland has spare capacity and by concentrating the production of the Volvo 8700 to Wroclaw, Volvo Buses can obtain more cost-efficient production. "The Wroclaw plant in south western Poland is Volvo's most important and most modern bus plant in Europe. Immediately after Poland took EU membership in 2004, annual production there was increased up from around 500 to over 700 in the space of a couple of years. This year the plant, which employs around 1,500 persons, is expected to produce in the region of 800 buses for the domestic Polish market and for sale in Europe. Exact figures for wages at the factory are not available, but a local union representative acknowledged that they were around the Polish average of just under 3,000 zlotys a month, or roughly EUR 850.
Eurofound (2008), Volvo, Offshoring/Delocalisation in Finland, factsheet number 66413, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/66413.
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