Above photo: IG Metall Berlin-Brandenburg-Sachsen/X.
Trade unions and the Volkswagen works council in Germany achieved significant breakthroughs in talks with management, avoiding plant closures and mass layoffs
Volkswagen workers in Germany secured major breakthroughs in their fight against the company’s planned cost-cutting measures. The agreement, finalized during the week of December 16 after marathon-length negotiations, preserves jobs, protects plant operations, and ensures long-term collective bargaining agreements, representing a significant departure from management’s initial proposals of plant closures, salary cuts, and mass redundancies.
“No site will be closed, no one will be made redundant and our in-house collective bargaining agreement will be secured in the long term,” said works council chair Daniela Cavallo in the follow-up to the negotiations.
This outlook, however, comes with several catches: workers will face income reductions, including cuts to bonuses, while some pay rises will be temporarily channeled into solidarity funds to preserve jobs. Some plants will also see reduced production capacity or shifts toward completely new production models, building upon proposals developed by IG Metall and the works council to make most of Volkswagen’s capacities in building a “circular economy” in Germany.
A local source familiar with the negotiation process told Peoples Dispatch that while the trade union and works council recognize the need to do “something to save Volkswagen,” they also believe the responsibility for the current crisis lies with both management and the government. According to the source, Volkswagen’s leadership failed to act in time to expand electric vehicle production, while the federal government neglected to address the issue of growing energy costs, further undermining operations.
Although the situation for Volkswagen workers in Germany has somewhat improved since September, the broader crisis facing Europe’s industrial sector is far from over. There is little indication that this looming threat will be addressed at the European Union level, and conditions at the local level appear equally bleak. As illustrated by Volkswagen’s recent experience, trade unions and workers’ organizations will undoubtedly play a crucial role in addressing these challenges, particularly by building international solidarity among scattered plants of the same companies. However, in many of these cases – including Volkswagen – this solidarity still requires strengthening. Our source noted that, in the case of Volkswagen, “there is still no real coordination of employees at the international level.”
If such coordination were to improve, workers could better challenge the interests of shareholders. Until then, Volkswagen operations in countries with weaker labor protections and less mobilization readiness than Germany remain exposed to management’s decisions.