Exception in Osnabrück
Employees stopped working at nine of the car manufacturer’s ten German locations on Monday following a call from IG Metall. The peacekeeping obligation at Europe’s largest car manufacturer ended at the weekend, during which labor disputes were not allowed. Only one location is not on strike: the VW factory in Osnabrück is the only German factory where IG Metall’s collective bargaining agreement applies. Collective bargaining there has already been concluded.
In her speech, Cavallo also criticized the owner families. “Volkswagen has recently been a huge profit machine.” Now that it is sputtering, the owning families have to do their part. She particularly criticized the dividend distributions made by the main shareholders Porsche and Piëch have received since 2014. According to their calculations, to earn an equivalent amount, a qualified worker would have to work for around 100,000 years.
Cavallo praised the fact that the families are closely linked to the company – and that the country Lower Saxony as another owner had already indicated that it would be able to forego the dividend in the current situation.
At the same time, Cavallo increased her criticism of VW’s management level. “When in doubt, the motto of the majority of our board is: here today, there tomorrow, gone the day after,” Cavallo said, according to the manuscript. In this context, she also mentioned the VW brand boss, Thomas Schäfer (54), who has his private main residence in Ireland and regularly travels back and forth between Ireland and Wolfsburg.
The CEO Oliver Blume is also known for his regular travels, as in addition to the group he also manages the Porsche brand, which is based in Stuttgart. In Wolfsburg he is used by some referred to as the “Tue-Wed-Thur boss”.
, as he usually works at the group’s headquarters from Tuesday to Thursday.
VW rejects IG Metall proposal
The conflict is about the pay of around 120,000 employees in the Volkswagen AG plants, where a separate in-house tariff applies. In addition, there are more than 10,000 employees at VW Sachsen, for whom an alignment with the company wage agreement was agreed in 2021. VW is demanding a ten percent wage cut due to the company’s difficult situation. There are also plant closures and redundancies for operational reasons. IG Metall wants to prevent this and instead calls for a future for all locations – without factory closures and redundancies.
VW had previously stated that it respected the employees’ right to warning strikes and continued to rely on an amicable solution with the employees. However, the group was tough on the matter: a counter-concept from IG Metall and the works council for savings without layoffs and plant closures VW had only rejected it as inadequate on Friday.
VW justifies the cuts with high costs and low utilization. In view of the weak demand for new cars, VW has to increase its savings efforts. According to brand boss Schäfer, there will probably be no way around plant closures.
The next round of negotiations in a week will set the course, said works council leader Daniela Cavallo. Either there will be a rapprochement or a further escalation.