More than 10,000 employees at German engineering and technology firm Bosch protested outside the company's headquarters on Wednesday against planned job cuts.
Another 15,000 workers joined the protests at other Bosch plants and offices around Germany, according to the Bosch works council and the industrial union IG Metall, which represents much of Bosch's German workforce.
Protesting Bosch employees all had a message for the company, said Frank Sell, head of the works council for the supply division.
"The message is: Stop, we can't go on like this. We will not be treated like this. Stop these insane job cuts," he said.
Sell said workers chose to demonstrate in part to demand central talks about the job cuts between labour leaders and Bosch management, a request that has so far been rebuffed.
Bosch is instead insisting on site-by-site talks about cuts at each factory and office, Sell said, accusing the company of trying a tactic of "divide and rule" against workers.
Bosch has announced multiple plans for redundancies and job cuts worldwide in recent months, primarily citing the need to maintain competitiveness.
The company says that more than 7,000 jobs across all divisions are at risk, including up to 3,200 in Bosch's major automotive supply division.
The latter largely concerns German locations in the drive division as well as in the areas of control units, vehicle electronics and software.
According to Bosch management, the redundancies are to be carried out in a socially responsible manner, including through early retirement schemes and retraining programmes for workers to move to jobs in growing areas of the firm.
