Volkswagen facing upheaval: VW Works Council Osterloh praises Diess and the conversion

04/13/2018

Volkswagen facing upheaval VW works council Osterloh praises Diess and the conversion

DPA

Bosse among themselves: Herbert Diess (l.), Since yesterday officially new Volkswagen CEO and Group Works Council Bernd Osterloh (image archive)

Following the decisions on the fundamental restructuring of the world’s largest car maker Volkswagen, Works Council Chairman Bernd Osterloh has announced the full support of the employee side in the Supervisory Board. He expressly welcomes the fact that the concern and the brand VW passenger cars should again be led in personal union, wrote Osterloh in a letter to the staff, which is the German press agency.

The evening before, the Supervisory Board had decided to promote the former VW brand manager Herbert Diess to the group boss – as successor to Matthias Müller. At the same time, however, this is not a return to an old system – most recently former CEO Martin Winterkorn had run both the brand and the group. According to Osterloh, a new deputy chairman for the brand, who is responsible for day-to-day business, is to be introduced.

Such a “Chief Operating Officer” (COO) had already demanded the works council in 2014, wrote Osterloh. This should be found in the next few weeks. The works council also called for new corporate structures four years ago.

A major concern for the employee representatives has always been a group for the volume brands VW, Seat and Skoda. This could avoid unnecessary costs, such as those incurred in parallel development work.

The supervisory board had decided to reorganize the brands of the twelve-brand group: the brand groups “volume” (VW, Skoda and Seat), “premium” (Audi) and “super premium” (Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini) were introduced. , For the commercial vehicle unit Truck & Bus, the prerequisites are to be created to bring these to the stock market. This step was also supported by the works councils.

Criticizing the structures are not necessarily criticism of the acting executives, stressed Osterloh. Müller steered the company successfully through the worst crisis in its history. He also saw job security and profitability as two sides of the same coin.

dpa

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