Home appliance group Gorenje announced on Friday that it would relocate its facilities for the production of kitchens from the Austrian town of Freistadt to Maribor, where the company already has a modern technological and logistical centre for kitchen production.
As production is to be moved to Slovenia in June or August, a part of the workforce will be transferred to other Gorenje subsidiaries in Austria.
The rest will be laid off with severance pay in accordance with Austrian legislation, the company said.
Gorenje opted for centralisation in order to streamline development and to achieve better cost efficiency.
Production facilities in Maribor have an annual output of 500,000 kitchen elements, the majority of which is exported to the EU.
Gorenje, which posted EUR 33m of sales in Austria in 2006, plans to hand over sales on the Austrian market to its subsidiary Gorenje Austria.
The secretary of the trade union at the Austrian subsidiary, Stefan Meier, said on Friday that the trade union had been informed about the relocation not by the management of the company but by the employees.
Gorenje spokeswoman Ursula Menih Dokl rejected on Saturday reproaches by the trade union, saying that the company informed the workers about the moving of the factory in time.
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