STUTTGART, Germany, July 23 (AFP) - German-US auto maker DaimlerChrysler said Friday that a compromise agreement had been reached in talks about cost cuts following two weeks of industrial action.
"We have reached an agreement," company spokesman Thomas Froehlich said.
Details about the deal struck between management, staff representatives and the powerful IG Metall union will be announced at a joint press conference here at 8:00 am (0600 GMT), he added.
Earlier this week the company said that management board members were prepared to accept a cut in wages if employees agreed to 500 million euros (620 million dollars) in cost cuts.
Sources close to the negotiators said that a deal on the 500 million euros was part of the agreement.
"The negotiations were difficult and only ended at 2:30 am (0030 GMT)," said Baden-Wuerttemberg state`s IG Metall spokesman Frank Stroh.
The agreement reached in intensive talks since Tuesday led to "a very big package", which should be judged as a whole, he added.
Stroh would not say whether management had made any concessions in exchange for the cuts.
Thousands of DaimlerChrysler workers have downed tools in a series of work stoppages in recent days to protest against the cost-cutting plans.
Employees are angered by DaimlerChrysler`s threat to shift production of its new Mercedes C-Class cars away from Sindelfingen to Bremen in northern Germany and a South Africa factory if unions do not agree to the 500 million euros in cost cuts.
That could lead to the loss of 6,000 of 12,000 jobs at the Sindelfingen plant.
IG Metall had opposed the plan which led to strikes at Sindelfingen and the Untertuerkheim engine plant outside the Baden-Wuerttemberg state capital Stuttgart.
The conflict is occurring amid a national debate in Germany on the desire of many companies to increase working hours.
Franz Muentefering, the head of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder`s Social Democrat party, last week accused certain companies of taking advantage of poor economic conditions to put pressure on workers.
"Habits that I hoped had disappeared are now appearing again," he told the Berliner Zeitung.