The power struggle between management and IG Metall has been causing a state of emergency in the Volkswagen Group for more than three months. At the start of the fifth round of negotiations on a new house tariff in a conference hotel in the Groß-Buchholz district of Hanover, the negotiators have now shown a willingness to compromise, but at the same time have appealed to the other side to make significant concessions. IG Metall has shown from the start that they was ready to move, said the union’s negotiator, Thorsten Gröger, on Monday morning in front of the microphones of the television and radio stations in the hotel foyer Wyndham Hannover Atrium had come. “We now have the door, as I would judge it, a crack open.” He once again emphasized the union’s position that no plants should be closed, no employees should be laid off for operational reasons and employees’ monthly salaries should not be permanently reduced. If the company sticks to these red lines, a solution could be possible, said the chairwoman of the group works council, Daniela Cavallo. A partial solution by Wednesday seems within reach. VW’s negotiator, Arne Meiswinkel, reiterated in a statement that there is still a long way to go on “central issues apart”. The company and the works council must now “find solutions together” and explore “further financial potential” in order to permanently relieve the burden on the result. Rooms in the hotel are reserved for the discussions at least for Monday and Tuesday. According to negotiating circles, one option is to present at least a partial solution on Wednesday. In addition to the in-house tariff for 120,000 employees at several locations in Lower Saxony and a components plant in Baunatal, Hesse, the discussions are also about how excess capacity can be reduced. Management has threatened to close plants and has not taken this option off the table. According to negotiating circles, in order to maintain the position that all locations will be retained, the works council could agree that all factories reduce capacity, even if this is already the case in some plants sheer fear ensures. For example in Zwickau: The factory there could be forced to hand over the ID.3 compact car to Wolfsburg. It has already been decided that the SUV ID.4 will go to Emden at the end of next year as part of a planned product upgrade, where some of the units are already rolling off the production line. Clear-cutting in some locations At the location in Saxony, only one Audi vehicle may remain. But there is also uncertainty about this, because the subsidiary with the four rings is underutilized in its factories in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm. Wolfsburg, in turn, could lose an already planned electric SUV to a production site abroad, and Hanover could hand over part of the production of the e-Bulli “ID Buzz” to Poland. The small Osnabrück location could be sold, the “Gläserne Manufaktur” in Dresden could stop production completely and use the buildings for other purposes. All of this is speculation, it is said in unison by those involved on the company and employer side. The talks are in full swing and nothing has been decided.More on the subject If nothing is approached, IG Metall’s “escalation planning” will take effect and the industrial dispute will be further intensified, the employee representatives threaten. In the hotel foyer, Cavallo referred to the recent warning strikes, in which, according to the union, around 100,000 employees took part. Further steps are possible and the workforce is ready to “fight for their future,” said IG Metall in Hanover.
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