DAIMLER OUTPUT COULD BE AFFECTED BY DISPUTE
Daimler-Benz AG [DAIG.F] said its car
production could fall by 150 cars a day in  the foreseeable
future  if works councils continue to refuse to approve the
firm's requests for employees to work overtime when necessary.
    A company spokesman said the works council at Daimler's
Unterturkheim plant, which makes axles and other components for
Daimler cars, has withheld approval for overtime since the
beginning of the month. The IG Metall metalworkers union in the
state of Baden-Wuerttemberg has called on works councils in the
state to reject overtime in a bid to get industry to employ
more workers.
    The Daimler spokesman said the lack of overtime work at the
Unterturkheim plant could eventually affect car output at other
plants but added he was unable to say when this might occur.
    A spokesman for Dr.-Ing. H.C. F. Porsche AG [PSHG.F], which
is also located in Baden-Wuerttemberg, said he did not think
Porsche would suffer any loss of production because of a ban on
overtime by its own works councils.
    A strike by IG Metall in Baden-Wuerttemberg in 1984 closed
down the German car industry for about seven weeks as the union
sought to win a 35-hour working week for its members. It later
settled for a reduction in the working week to 38.5 hours.
    The spokesman said Daimler's total output of cars was
currently around 2,500 a day.
 REUTER
