ISTANBUL—Renault SA's Turkish joint venture said
Wednesday that it reached an agreement with workers to end a labor
protest that halted production for almost two weeks at the French
auto maker's biggest plant outside Western Europe.
Workers will get a one-time payment of 1,000 liras ($377) and
qualify for minimum performance bonus of 600 liras, based on
quality and production targets, said Oyak Renault, which is 51%
owned by the French car company with the Turkish army pension fund
holding the remaining stake.
The company will also come up with a plan to improve salaries
based on an industry-wide collective labor agreement within a
month, Oyak Renault said in a statement on its website. No worker
will be fired because of the labor action, it said.
"This applies to our blue-collar [workers] who resume work on
May 27," Oyak Renault said, declaring that production would restart
with the 8 a.m. shift on Wednesday.
The agreement was reached on Tuesday, the company said, pledging
not to take legal action against workers or seek compensation from
the employees for the work stoppage. Employees also agreed not to
sue the company, Oyak Renault said.
While Renault's Turkish manufacturer didn't disclose how many
people had returned to work, local news agencies said all but 16 of
the 1,300 employees who brought production to a halt May 15 were
back at work.
The labor unrest that started at Oyak Renault's plant in Bursa,
about an hour south of Istanbul, rapidly spread through the
industry in the following days, hitting local car-parts
manufacturers as well as joint-ventures producing vehicles for Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles NV and Ford Motor Co.
At the root of the work stoppage lies a dispute over wages, with
employees accusing the Turkish Employers' Association of Metal
Industries of negotiating a bad deal on their behalf after a Bosch
Ltd. plant gave a 60% raise to members of the same union.
Since employees downed tools, most Turkish firms and Tofas Turk
Otomobil Fabrikasi AS—producer of Fiat, Citroën,
Peugeot, Opel and Vauxhall vehicles—have reached
agreements along similar lines with Oyak Renault to restart
work.
On Tuesday, Ford Otomotiv Sanayi AS, the U.S. car maker's local
unit in partnership with Koc Holding AS, said it halted production
at a factory as sporadic labor protests over wages continued to
disrupt manufacturers at Turkish auto makers.
Oyak Renault had said it wouldn't renegotiate the terms of the
collective labor agreement signed last year. Its statement shows
that the additional payouts to workers were based on articles in
the industrywide deal, which is valid through August 2017.
Write to Yeliz Candemir at yeliz.candemir@wsj.com
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