2024-09-05 12:39:32
Company meeting after savings plans
VW manager after protests: “The market is simply no longer there”
Updated on 04.09.2024 – 16:20Reading time: 4 min.
The savings plans at the car manufacturer Volkswagen are angering employees. Protests are taking place on the sidelines of the works meeting. The management is trying to limit the damage.
Tensions in Wolfsburg: The VW works meeting began with sharp protests from the workforce. Employees greeted the board with banners protesting against the latest austerity plans. “Hands off job security” read one banner. Another accused the board of directors of “double standards” with regard to possible salary cuts.
The works council spoke of more than 16,000 participants. According to the information, more than 10,000 were present in the factory hall, and another 5,000 followed the meeting on screens set up outside. According to participants, thousands in the hall chanted “We are Volkswagen, you are not!” as the board members took their seats on the stage.
Works council chairwoman Daniela Cavallo had previously spoken of great uncertainty among the workforce and announced “bitter resistance”. According to the speech manuscript, she accused management of having no ideas. “Cutting costs, closing plants, laying off employees for operational reasons” – this response to the crisis was “not just a disgrace, it is a declaration of bankruptcy”. “Never in a million years” would she allow plant closures and layoffs, Cavallo told the board.
Plant closures in Germany not ruled out
Europe’s largest car manufacturer announced on Monday that it would further tighten the austerity measures it has taken at its core brand VW in view of the worsening situation. Plant closures in Germany and redundancies are no longer being ruled out. According to the works council, VW is also demanding cuts to the company’s collective agreement. Read more about this here.
Works council chairwoman Cavallo admits that VW is facing “serious problems”. However, the company’s problems are not due to its German locations and German personnel costs, but rather “the fact that the management board is not doing its job”. “When there is a crisis” at the car manufacturer, it is not just about the 120,000 employees at Volkswagen AG, Cavallo continued. “It’s about Lower Saxony. It’s about Germany.”
At the non-public company meeting, brand boss Thomas Schäfer and Group CFO Arno Antlitz wanted to explain the savings plans. In his speech, Schäfer tried to stir up hope for a successful future. Cost reduction and investments “in a model fireworks display” would lay the foundation for this. “Then we will be the ones who have created the conditions so that the next generations can also work for Volkswagen here in Germany,” said Schäfer.
Antlitz also emphasized future generations. The possible employment of children and grandchildren is “our shared responsibility.” But for this to happen, something has to change in the company. “We have been spending more money on the brand than we earn for some time now. That’s not going to work in the long run!” said Antlitz.
According to Antlitz, the reasons for this are the lower sales of all European manufacturers since the Corona pandemic. The market has not yet recovered from this. There is still a gap of around two million fewer vehicles sold per year. At Volkswagen itself, the largest European manufacturer, this is reflected in a lack of sales of around 500,000 vehicles.
“And that has nothing to do with our products or poor sales performance. The market is simply no longer there,” Antlitz continued. Volkswagen now has “one, maybe two years to turn things around.”
CEO Oliver Blume announced: “Together we will implement appropriate measures to become more economical. We are taking VW back to where the brand belongs – that is the responsibility of all of us.” Another staff meeting is planned for the afternoon at the Emden site.