A close confidant of Works Council Chairman Bernd Osterloh joins the Board of Volkswagen. The trade unionist welcomes the restructuring of the group: Conflicts with the new CEO Herbert Diess have been eliminated.
VW works council chief Bernd Osterloh
Friday, 13.04.2018
11:56 clock
Volkswagen does not need to fear resistance from the powerful works council in its large-scale corporate restructuring. Its boss Bernd Osterloh has announced the full support of the employee side in the supervisory board.
The supervisory board decided on a “groundbreaking redesign for the management structure”, wrote Osterloh in a letter to the employees. In addition, the personnel changes would come on the board. “Both have the full support of the employee side in the supervisory board,” it says in the letter.
He welcomed the fact that in the future the group and the brand Volkswagen passenger cars would again be led in personal union, said Osterloh. At the same time, this is not a return to an old system. Recently, former CEO Martin Winterkorn had led both brand and group. According to Osterloh, it will be new that there will be a “Chief Operating Officer” (COO) for the VW brand, which will be responsible for day-to-day operations. This will now be searched. This post should probably relieve the new CEO Herbert Diess.
Osterloh acknowledged in the letter that there had been disputes between the works council and Diess about a year ago in the implementation of the future pact. It was about a large-scale austerity package. “However, as is known, this circumstance has long been dispelled,” writes Osterloh. In addition, the head of the works council secured the group’s support for the employees in rebuilding the commercial vehicle division.
New VW boss Herbert Diess
VW has the go-ahead for a Thursday large-scale corporate restructuring given. The former VW brand manager Herbert Diess was from the Supervisory Board officially promoted to Group CEO and replaces Matthias Müller.
The supervisors also decided on additional personal details: Gunnar Kilian, previously Secretary General in the works council and a close confidant of the mighty VW Works Council boss Osterloh, will become Chief Human Resources Officer. At the same time, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume moves up to the Group Executive Board.
Works council benefits from the conversion
Especially by the call of Kilian sees the influential works council at VW secured its position of power, For the employees, however, the immediate communication of the change in leadership caused annoyance. They were surprised on Tuesday by a compulsory release from the group, which VW had to issue because a newspaper had learned the plan. Above all, the lack of communication of the Supervisory Board was criticized.
In addition to the personnel changes VW has also decided to reorganize the brands: Introduced are the brand groups “volume” (VW, Skoda and Seat), “Premium” (Audi) and “Super Premium” (Porsche, Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini). For the Truck & Bus commercial vehicle unit, the conditions are to be created to market them.
Criticism of the structures are not necessarily criticism of the acting executives, wrote Osterloh in the letter to the employees. The previous CEO Müller had the company successfully steered by the worst crisis in its history, He also saw job security and profitability as two sides of the same coin.
Ex-VW boss wishes successors “much success and the necessary luck”
Müller also spoke up in a letter to the employees. He himself has learned a lot in the past two and a half years at the top “about our industry, the company and also about myself,” Müller wrote, according to the magazine “Automobilwoche”.
“Our industry is in transition – little will remain as it was,” the manager is quoted as saying. “But Volkswagen proves that this group is ready to make change courageous and consistent.” To do his part, make him “grateful and proud”.
He introduced more decentralized structures, initiated the change to more electric cars and improved efficiency. In addition, he had worked on a “more open, less hierarchical culture”, wrote Müller with regard to the internal changes in the course of the processing of the diesel scandal. He wishes his successor Herbert Diess and the whole team “much success and the necessary luck”.