Volkswagen’s restructuring plans in Germany, accompanied with reports of major job cuts and plant closures, last week triggered workers’ demonstrations at all the group’s domestic plants.
The campaigns, organised by union IG Metall and the works councils, came in reaction to press reports that hundreds of thousands of jobs at the carmaker could be at stake. Worldwide, the group employs 657,000 people. Four German plants are threatened with closure – Neckarsulm, Emden, Hanover and Zwickau.
Over the weekend, IG Metall’s VW department used its international newsletter to attack company chief executive Oliver Blume for failing to communicate details on the plans before the end of the week. “He has allowed a deadline to pass by within which he was due to finally provide employees with details of his plans for several site closures in Germany and large-scale job cuts,” Kallanish reads in the newsletter.
The group’s works council had issued the ultimatum on Thursday after it became clear that there was still no clarity regarding the speculation. “During management briefings on Friday, Blume discussed both the likely closure of German factories and a massively expanded job-cutting target. We strongly condemn the fact that, at the same time, he continues to keep this information from the tens of thousands of affected employees outside management,” the union writes.
In fact, management makes no literal mention of job cuts and closures in the “Future Plan” it communicated last week. It does, however, declare a cutback of units produced, Kallanish notes.
Production capacities “are being adjusted to the changed global market environment and the sharply intensified competition, targeting 9 million vehicles per year,” VW’s announcement says. By comparison, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the company had guided for approximately 12m vehicles and has since cut back to 10m units.
The model lineup will be gradually concentrated on the most attractive market segments and streamlined by up to 50%, the company states. “We can only achieve this by substantially reducing complexity – in our product portfolio and technology platforms, in the number of units and decision-making levels,” says chief financial officer Arno Antlitz.
