Nine Volkswagen plants on strike as worker rift with management deepens

Tens of thousands of workers to strike across VW's German plants

By Reuters

Published: Mon 2 Dec 2024, 5:51 PM

Workers at nine Volkswagen car and component plants across Germany started two-hour strikes on Monday, bringing assembly lines to a halt as labour and management clash over the future of Europe's biggest carmaker.

Workers on their morning shifts went on strike for two hours, while those on evening shift plan to leave work early in protest at the carmaker's demands, which include a 10 per cent wage cut.

Volkswagen has threatened to close plants in Germany for the first time in its 87-year history, saying it needs to reduce costs and boost profit as European carmakers struggle with weak demand, high production costs, competition from Chinese rivals and a slower-than-expected electric vehicle transition.

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At Volkswagen's main plant in Wolfsburg, which employs 70,000 people, a two-hour strike means several hundred cars, including the iconic Golf, cannot be built, union sources said.

An agreement not to stage walkouts ended on Saturday, enabling industrial action across VW AG's German plants.

In addition to Wolfsburg and Hanover, which employs a further 14,000 staff, plants affected include Zwickau, VW's EV-only plant, where workers will strike on Monday and Tuesday.

The crisis at Europe's largest carmaker has hit Germany at a time of economic uncertainty and domestic political upheaval, as well as wider turmoil among the region's automakers.

Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares resigned abruptly on Sunday after the group lost around 40 per cent of its value this year.

The VW strikes, which could escalate into 24-hour or unlimited stoppages unless a deal is struck in the next round of wage negotiations, will reduce Volkswagen's output, adding to the impact of declining deliveries and plunging profit.

"How long and how intensive this confrontation needs to be is Volkswagen's responsibility at the negotiating table," Thorsten Groeger, who leads negotiations on behalf of the IG Metall union, said.

"Anyone who ignores the workforce is playing with fire - and we know how to turn sparks into flames," he added.

Red lines for workers

Daniela Cavallo, head of Volkswagen's works council, reiterated that Volkswagen's biggest shareholders, which apart from Lower Saxony include a holding firm controlled by the Porsche and Piech families, may also have to make sacrifices with regard to the annual dividend.

She did not elaborate what that would entail.

Cavallo said the fourth round of negotiations scheduled for Dec. 9 would either result in both sides finding common ground or an escalation.

"Unfortunately, the signals recently sent by management are not really encouraging," she said, adding plant closures, mass layoffs and cuts to existing wages were red lines for workers.

A Volkswagen spokesperson said the carmaker respected the workers' right to strike and had taken steps to ensure a basic level of supplies to customers and minimise the strike's impact.

The union last week proposed measures it said would save 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion), including forgoing bonuses for 2025 and 2026, which management dismissed as unrealistic and delaying the inevitable.

In a speech to workers assembled on a square in Hanover on Monday, union representative Sascha Dudzik condemned management for making workers pay for what he said were executives’ mistakes, from the diesel emissions scandal to falling behind more innovative competitors in China.

“We did not make these decisions - the millionaires at the top of VW did,” he said.

Workers marched in Hanover, blowing whistles, holding flags and signs and accompanied by a four-piece band.

“We are told we are more expensive than workers in Bratislava (Slovakia), (and) in China. I’d like to know how managements’ salaries compare,” said Stavros Christidis, works council chief at the Hanover plant.

Lucia Heim, a worker at VW's Hanover plant taking part in Monday's strike, also criticised what she saw as management injustice.

"It's a twisted world: in football, trainers quit if they're not winning the game. At VW, it's the other way around. Players are being punished," she said.