After the cash collapse in the Volkswagen Group at the end of the year turned out better than expected, desires are growing in various places. As the influential Group Works Council announced on Tuesday evening in a special edition of its internal publication “Mitdeterminieren”, the employee representatives are demanding that not only the managers, but also the employees benefit from the unexpectedly high cash inflow. Daniela Cavallo, the chairwoman of the Group Works Council, called for a “recognition bonus” that should flow to the employees in the in-house collective bargaining agreement and at Volkswagen Sachsen GmbH in May. From management to line workers, everyone worked on the costs and also made sacrifices, says Cavallo. “And if everyone has now done so well together in terms of cost discipline that the net cash flow is correct, a recognition bonus is only fair.” The company said on Wednesday that it had received the works council’s request. “As usual,” the company will only discuss such topics internally. “Please understand that we will not comment further on them until then.” Warm rain for the VW management The trigger for the discussions was a mandatory announcement with which VW surprised the capital market at the end of January. Based on preliminary figures, there was a “positive deviation” from the financial plans in force until then for the past 2025 financial year, the group announced. The focus was, among other things, on net cash flow, a key indicator of the company’s financial strength. Instead of close to zero – as recently expected internally and externally – the inflow of funds is now expected to be around six billion euros. VW plans to present the detailed annual financial statements in March. The surprising inflow of money is causing unrest in Wolfsburg. Because it affects the compensation of top management. According to the previous planning assumptions, it was actually assumed that there would be no annual bonus, a variable component of manager salaries, for the past 2025 financial year. With the higher inflow of funds now reported, executives can probably look forward to a payout. This causes irritation – also because VW is still in crisis and the specialist departments around CFO Arno Antlitz continue to insist on strict cost programs. “We share the criticism of the group’s previous information policy regarding the six billion euro net cash flow,” the employee representatives led by Cavallo said at the beginning of the week. On Tuesday evening they followed up with their own demand for a bonus for the employees. The works council boss and her union IG Metall are in the middle of the election campaign for the upcoming works council elections. Competing groups in the workforce are putting IG Metall under pressure and have long been demanding that it take a tougher stance towards VW management and greater commitment to employee interests. One of Cavallo’s most prominent opponents is Frank Patta, once a high-ranking official at IG Metall, who has been on his own for several years and is now running his own list against his former union. Works meeting in March The workforce, in turn, is unsettled by the tough fight for savings over the past months and years. She is expected to accept many cuts. An example of this is the May payment, a variable distribution to employees that will be suspended this year and next according to previous agreements. Cavallo obviously wants to create at least some replacement with the new “recognition bonus” and thus strengthen its support among the workforce again. Whether it will be possible to enforce such a payment for May, and if so, how much, “Team Cavallo and the Board of Directors are now negotiating,” according to the works council’s internal publication. The works meeting in Wolfsburg at the beginning of March could bring about a “water level”. More on the topic CFO Antlitz had already tried in internal statements a few days ago to classify the surprising mandatory announcement to the capital market. VW has been working on development costs, investments and its inventories, he explained there. The extent of the improvement that VW achieved as a result was indeed surprising. It shows what potential the group can leverage if it works “on cross-divisional, targeted improvements”. Those close to the CFO say that possible manager bonuses did not play a role in the efforts. Rather, the focus was on stabilizing the credit rating. A downgrade by rating agencies has long been considered a risk in the group because it would make financing significantly more expensive. Higher cash flow, it is said, reduces the risk.
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