The paltry offer was made before a labour tribunal in the southern city of Ulm on Wednesday, with Gerda Straemanns, lawyer for Schlecker’s administrators suggesting it would be a “guideline for all Schlecker cases.”
Judge Nikolaus Zimmermann said on Thursday, “If both parties agree, the case, which would be a difficult one, would be avoided.”
But, the Tagesspiegel daily newspaper said even the judge admitted the money on offer was not a lot. The former employees generally have two weeks to decide whether to accept it, the paper noted.
And on Thursday, the “€500 for all” idea was knocked down by Patrick Hacker, spokesman for Schlecker’s administrators who said, “these are individual decisions.”
Across the country more than 1,500 people are suing their former employer after more than 10,000 jobs were cut and around 2,000 shops closed last month in a desperate attempt to make the company sellable.
Little progress is being made on that front, although administrator Arndt Geiwitz insisted that the potential buyers were serious. The Financial Times Deutschland reported on Thursday that the offers made so far were low, and some were completely dependent on loans.
The Local/DPA/hc
Member comments