HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - Around 300 employees of Wintershall Dea protested in Hamburg on Tuesday against the consequences of the planned cost-cutting program at the oil and gas company, according to the IG BCE trade union. In doing so, they demanded "a fair social plan" for employees affected by job losses.

"The company is massively intervening in the future of the employees," said Günther Prien, chairman of the group works council, according to the statement. "We expect our owners, first and foremost BASF as the majority shareholder and thus the owner who brought the high-risk Russian business into this merger in 2019, to provide appropriate compensation for the loss of our jobs, because we here at the Hamburg site bear no responsibility for the fatal decisions."

Wintershall Dea plans to cut hundreds of jobs with a focus on Germany. Worldwide, around 500 jobs are to be cut, with around 300 jobs affected in Germany, the company had announced in September. Its chief executive Mario Mehren justified the move with the consequences of Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine. With the withdrawal from Russia, the company had lost half of its production and 60 percent of its reserves. Production costs had risen by 35 percent. In addition, administrative costs were 50 percent higher than those of competitors.

The Hamburg site, among others, is affected by the job cuts. Around 100 jobs are to be relocated there to Kassel, where the Group's sole administrative headquarters will be located in the future. The union fears that even more than 350 jobs in Hamburg are at risk. Just this summer, Wintershall Dea moved into a new office building in Hafencity with around 500 Hamburg employees.

"We are working on many fronts to bring out the best conditions for employees," assured Jan Koltze, the Hamburg district manager of the Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Union (BCE). "I get the impression that the aim here is to spruce up a company for sale," he added. "But now it is the employees who are to suffer first. We must try to prevent that."/kf/DP/ngu