Wolfgang Bernhard, at the 2003 Detroit Auto Show, introducing the Tomahawk concept.
Wolfgang Bernhard has been elevated to Daimler AG’s board of management, and Daimler chief executive officer Dieter Zetsche proposing to make Bernhard a full member of the supervisory board and put him in charge of Mercedes-Benz Cars Production and Procurement and for the Mercedes-Benz Vans division.
Discussions are being held with Rainer Schmückle, currently responsible for Production and Procurement, Mercedes-Benz, said the announcement, which calls attention to the less-than transparent inner workings of the Daimler supervisory and management board, where top managers, unions, shareholders and major creditors vie for authority.
At least one influential German magazine, Der Spiegel, has speculated that Zetsche’s grip on power is tenuous. Under his management, Daimler has seen a disastrous break-up with its one-time American partner, Chrysler, among other things.
Zetsche, however, insists that that after a rough patch created by the global recession, Daimler is on the mend, thanks to a strong showing in both the U.S. and in China, the latter market providing significant sales growth.
Zetsche also announced that Daimler planned to restructure Mercedes-Benz production in the next product cycle by shifting some work out of its big home plant in Sindelfingen, near Stuttgart, placing more emphasis on production in Eastern Europe and in the United States, where the Mercedes-Benz plant in Alabama is scheduled to begin building C-Class vehicles in the next few years.
The production shift requires complicated negotiations with the German Metalworkers Union, however, which could decide to complicate the move by insisting that work only go to unionized plants. In the past, the powerful labor group, known as IG Mettal, has had only sporadic and superficial cooperation with the United Auto Workers Union, which has so far failed to organize the Alabama assembly line.
After a long lapse, the German union, which has cooperated with metalworkers unions in South Africa and Brazil, finally may have decided that it is in its own strategic interest to work more closely with the UAW. So far far IG Mettal hasn’t tipped its hand.
Meanwhile, Bob King, the UAW’s incoming president, has said he wants to work more closely with other unions around the world.
Besides being a close ally of Zetsche from his days at Chrysler, probably the main reason for his new appointment, Bernhard just happens to be one of the only German executives around who has experience dealing with the UAW. He spent several years working out of Chrysler’s headquarters, in the Detroit suburb of Auburn Hills, much of that alongside Zetsche, when he was the U.S. maker’s CEO.
After leaving the States, Bernhard bounced around several times. He served briefly as head of the Volkswagen brand before running afoul of the automaker’s powerful patriarch, Ferdinand Piech.
Bernhard also was thought to be the lead candidate to become Chrysler’s chief executive following its sale, by Daimler, to the private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management. But for still-unexplained reasons, Cerberus turned to former Home Depot boss Bob Nardelli in the hours before news reports predicted Bernhard would be introduced in his new role.
Since rejoining Daimler, Bernhard has risen fast and is now considered by German observers to be on track to head the Mercedes-Benz car group, the job he was denied back in 2003.