E. ON is Germany's single largest utility and is looking to cut costs and reduce assets to improve its debt to revenue ratio. The debt was largely acquired through expansion efforts abroad. The union is pushing to have management ban massive firings and back the pay of employees transferred to other companies that E. ON sells its assets to.

Workers are expected to demonstrate near the E. ON headquarters located in Dusseldorf today. Company spokesperson Jens Schreiber stated that the company does not understand why the workers are protesting as the company and union are in productive discussions at this time. The goal by both sides is to eliminate firings to reduce operating costs.

The union claims that up to 6,000 job be eliminated and that the work force will not likely be reduced through retirements or other forms of attrition. In addition to the 6,000 jobs that are on the line at this time an additional 3,000 jobs may be lost to outsourcing. The company is selling assets and considering outsourcing of many services to include IT. The union and workers are very distraught over the possibility of 9,000 jobs being lost. The company counters with recent growth of the work force as being out of line with revenues. Last year the workforce grew to almost 94,000 people which is an increase of almost 7% in one year.

In 2008 the employees of E. ON cautioned they would cut nuclear power plant output to force the company to purchase expensive power from the spot market in order to meet contracted deliverables. An agreement was reached before the action was taken.

If the union and company can not reach a mutually satisfactory settlement the workers are likely to take a similar approach and ask that IT staff conduct a work stoppage after the summer holiday.

While E.ON's reactor at their Isar 2 plant is second in world wide production only to France's SA Chooz B1 reactor, it is only 1/3 as profitable as its domestic competitor. This fact is driving the cost reductions. The company is looking to lower costs by 1.5 billion euros between now and 2011. Procurement and administrative expenses and job losses would meet this goal.