Над 60 хил. работници на Volkswagen стачкуват в Германия – haroonabadvital.com

Image: Bloomberg LP

An estimated 66,000 Volkswagen AG employees across Germany left their jobs on Monday due to an impasse in talks with management over how to cut costs at the namesake brand, Bloomberg reported.

The so-called warning strikes, aimed at putting pressure on management during negotiations, took place at almost all of Volkswagen’s nine plants in Germany, including Zwickau, where electric cars are made.

The influential IG Metall union said it reserves the right to call more warning strikes soon, and workers’ meetings are scheduled to be held at plants in the next few days.

“If necessary, this will be the toughest collective bargaining battle Volkswagen has ever faced,” said Torsten Groeger, IG Metall’s lead representative in the Volkswagen talks.

Management and labor leaders at Volkswagen are debating how to deal with falling demand for electric vehicles, rising operating costs and growing competition from Chinese manufacturers. While management has indicated that the company must close three German factories and lay off thousands of workers, union representatives insist that the factories remain open.

The automaker last faced such small-scale strikes at all sites in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, such as a longer work stoppage during wage negotiations in 2018. It employs more than 50,000 workers at six plants.

In Wolfsburg, where Volkswagen is headquartered, employees walked off the job Monday morning to attend a rally where works council president Daniela Cavallo criticized management for refusing to back down from plans to close factories and not supporting workers’ pay cuts. Dividends as part of a savings plan.

Cavallo told the workers: “This warning strike is being held to highlight our legitimate demands.” “The board of directors must know that the crisis at Volkswagen can only be resolved in cooperation with the workforce, not against it,” she said emphatically.

Two hours of production shutdowns on four lines at Volkswagen’s main plant in Wolfsburg equate to a production loss of between 400 and 600 cars. The total number is likely to exceed 1,000 cars, taking into account other assembly plants in Germany.

A Volkswagen spokesman said on Sunday that the company was seeking constructive dialogue to reach a common solution, adding that the company had taken concrete measures in response to the planned strikes.

A fourth round of talks is scheduled for December 9, with Cavallo saying the meeting “will likely determine the way forward: settlement or escalation.”