Norbert Bertram: Confrontational veteran

14 years young, Norbert Bertram begins his apprenticeship as a mechanic at MAPAL in 1955. The working week has 55 hours and Saturday work is compulsory. The company still largely resides in barracks, and there is only a water trough for the workers to wash in.

After his apprenticeship, Norbert Bertram is taken on and quickly becomes a master craftsman in complete machining. Because he is a man who does not mince his words, he is elected to the Works Council in 1971, which he heads as Chairman for decades from 1975. And he does this without ever being released from his job for this works council work. He never sees this as a disadvantage - on the contrary: “I always wanted to be in contact with people, that was my strength,” he recalls. Another of his strengths is “that his insistence on a point of view that he considers important and right can almost go as far as stubbornness, but that in the end the well-being of the employees and the company are equally important to him”, which is certified to him during a distinction at a later stage.

Norbert Bertram is fired several times because of his persitence in the matter itself - but only in heated debates and never for real. On the other hand, Dr Dieter Kress occasionally invites him spontaneously to dinner when he visits the restaurant in Norbert Bertram's home town of Rosenberg. “Ultimately,” Bertram recalls, “it's always a giving and taking, one has to find a healthy compromise between the management and the workforce.” At his retirement ceremony in 2006, Dr Dieter Kress paid tribute in detail to the fact that he had succeeded in doing this during his 52 years at MAPAL.

The “MAPAL veteran” is never tired of vehemently standing up for every individual employee and on the other hand he “played a decisive role in the rapid expansion and further development of the company”.

DR. DIETER KRESS congratulates NORBERT BERTRAM on his service anniversary in 2006.