According to media reports, the works council provided information about Volkswagen management’s “clear plans” (quote from “Handelsblatt”, note) at information events held simultaneously in all locations this morning.
“The board wants to close at least three VW factories in Germany. He claims: “It will not work without such a cut,” said the chairman of the general works council, Daniela Cavallo, on Monday at Volkswagen’s main plant in Wolfsburg. According to Cavallo, the company’s management also announced that it would reduce the remaining plants in Germany. “All German VW plants are affected by these plans. None of them are safe,” Cavallo said.
The Union warns of an escalation
Cavallo threatened to take combat action in front of the workforce. “The board is against us,” she said. Not only did he end contracts, but also everything that the culture at Volkswagen stands for. “And so he’s really playing with the risk that everything here will go up soon. And what I mean by that is that we end the discussion and do what workers have to do when they are afraid to be there.
Cavallo cautioned against dismissing the announcements “as a wreck in the collective bargaining round.” Thousands of jobs are involved. According to the information, the management of the company submitted their plans to the general works council recently regardless of the second round of collective bargaining that was due on Wednesday. According to Cavallo, VW wants a flat rate of ten percent reduction and a zero round over the next two years.
Works council: VW wants to close three plants
According to the works council in Germany, Volkswagen wants to close many plants and cut thousands of jobs. “The board wants to close at least three VW factories in Germany,” the council’s group works manager Daniela Cavallo said at an information event for the workforce in Wolfsburg.
VW: “The situation is serious”
The company remained tight-lipped on Monday. “We are not participating in the speculation regarding the secret discussions with IG Metall and the works council at collective bargaining and company level,” VW explained. The company is at a “decisive point in its corporate history”.
“The reality is: the situation is serious and the responsibility of the negotiating partners is huge,” Human Resources Director Gunnar Kilian said in a broadcast. The group announced “concrete proposals to reduce labor costs” for collective bargaining.
Brand manager Thomas Schäfer attributed the move to the high costs at the German locations. According to Schäfer, the German sites are “not fertile enough”. According to the VW manager, the factory costs are currently “25 to 50 percent higher than we planned”. “We cannot continue as before,” said Schäfer.
Union: “Break with everything”
The IG Metall union has issued a declaration of war against plant closures and job cuts that are now being discussed. “These rabid plans by the board are in no way acceptable and break with everything we have experienced in the company in recent years,” said IG Metall’s district manager, Thorsten Gröger.
“This is a deep stab in the heart of the hard-working VW workforce,” Gröger said. “We hope that, instead of obvious fantasies, Volkswagen and its board of directors will describe viable concepts of the future at the negotiating table, which have so far been little more than empty phrases presented by employers.”
Scholz calls for job retention
We still have to wait and see what Volkswagen itself explains about this, said a government spokesman in Berlin. However, Chancellor Scholz’s position is clear – “it is that the wrong management decisions that may exist from the past must be detrimental to the employees.” It is about maintaining and securing jobs.
120,000 jobs, ten factories
At the beginning of September, the company’s management announced that factory closures and operational layoffs for the core brand were no longer out of the question. Shortly after, VW canceled several collective agreements, including employment protection that had been in place for over 30 years. This means that operational redundancies could take place from mid-2025.
All sides agree that Volkswagen is in trouble right now. “We have serious problems. We have to address this at Volkswagen,” said Cavallo. The management and the workers are not so far apart in analyzing the problems, but they are a mile apart in finding the answer.
VW employs around 120,000 people in Germany, around half of them in Wolfsburg. The VW brand operates a total of ten factories in Germany, six of which are in the state of Lower Saxony, three in Saxony and one in Hesse.