STUTTGART (dpa-AFX) - Resistance is mounting against the planned sale of Mercedes-Benz's own car dealerships. A nationwide day of action is planned, the General Works Council and the IG Metall trade union announced in Stuttgart on Wednesday. There will be rallies at six locations next Tuesday, in addition to the headquarters in Stuttgart-Untertürkheim also in Sindelfingen, Rastatt, Bremen, Düsseldorf and Berlin. The motto of the action is "We stick together - on July 2 and every day".

According to earlier information, around 8,000 people are employed at the Group's own Mercedes-Benz branches in around 80 plants. Several dealerships can belong to one company. The car manufacturer had announced in March that it intended to sell the dealerships. Each dealership would be examined individually, it said at the time. According to a spokesperson, no dealerships have yet been sold.

Mercedes wants to select the buyers according to several criteria. According to earlier statements, they would have to have retail expertise, entrepreneurial competence, economic strength, a willingness to invest and an open attitude towards employee representatives. The locations are not to be sold as a whole. The automotive group has also ruled out purely financial investors as buyers. There will be no redundancies, but the aim will be to retain jobs in Germany, it said.

The head of the General Works Council, Ergun Lümali, had sharply criticized the move after it became known and announced resistance. The plans were a "slap in the face" for the employees and were neither acceptable nor comprehensible. Works meetings had already been held at many locations in the spring./jwe/DP/stk