Volkswagen CEO Olivier Blume confronted an enormous booing crowd in Germany in the present day, telling tens of hundreds of staff that the corporate isn’t working in “a fantasy world” and that crops will probably be closing and jobs will probably be misplaced. Right here’s the most recent.
On Monday, 100 thousand staff walked off at 9 Volkswagen factories throughout Germany, together with its EV-only manufacturing unit, bringing meeting strains to a grinding halt within the battle over the slashed pay, misplaced jobs, and the automaker’s future. Now Blume is locked in an intense dispute with IG Metall, with administration pushing for main cuts whereas staff are threatening extra strikes if a good deal isn’t met.
Right this moment, a gaggle of about 20,000 staff at VW’s important plant in Wolfsburg listened to Blume make the declare that the corporate has its fingers tied. “As administration we aren’t working in a fantasy world. We’re making choices in a quickly altering atmosphere,” he informed staff, based on Automotive Information Europe. Blume added that he grew up within the area and Wolfsburg was near his coronary heart, however that sentiment was met with roaring boos from the gang.
Volkswagen and IG Metall are scheduled to satisfy for a fourth spherical of talks on December 9.
The strike comes after weeks of collective bargaining negotiations by which Volkswagen didn’t again down from its plan to doubtlessly lower hundreds of jobs and shut factories in Germany – a primary within the automaker’s 87-year historical past within the nation. Volkswagen plans to shut at the least three factories, lay off hundreds of staff, and trim pay for these remaining by 10%, all because it fights to remain alive amid stiff competitors from China. Volkswagen introduced that it could formally shut its Audi plant in Brussels the place it makes the Audi Q8 E-Tron.
“The value strain is immense,” Blume stated, including that VW was struggling in its largest market China and that labor prices in Germany have been too excessive to compete. “We due to this fact urgently must take measures to safe the way forward for Volkswagen,” he stated, based on the report. “Our plans for this are on the desk.”
A tough comparability of wage knowledge from 2023 reveals that, on common, the hourly wage for a employee within the German car trade is about 33 euros ($34,72), which has been largely unchanged up to now few years. Taking a look at autoworker wages in China, a Reuters evaluation of 30 auto corporations within the nation, together with Tesla, SAIC, and Xpeng, reveals hourly wages of 14 yuan ($1.93) to 31 yuan ($4.27). BYD posted a place final 12 months at its Shenzhen manufacturing unit with a month-to-month earnings beginning at 5,000 yuan, or $688.
VW’s labor council head Daniela Cavallo has criticized Blume for not being prepared to make sacrifices in administration and among the many shareholders. She stated the union is aiming for a deal to be finalized by Christmas. “That can imply compromises. Concessions too. Issues that you just don’t like and that typically damage you a technique or one other. However that has to use to all sides,” she stated. “In any other case, it’s not a compromise.”
This comes at a time when VW is radically restructuring its enterprise to chop prices, whereas in search of to streamline manufacturing and growth processes, shaving off months on the event cycles of particular tasks to assist tighten the belts, all whereas rethinking its EV retail mannequin to remain extra aggressive. Volkswagen has been dealing with a steep decline in gross sales in China, which is its core market, whereas concurrently dealing with challenges from BYD and different Chinese language automakers coming into the European market.
As an apart, the strikes didn’t unfold to its factories within the US, the place many staff are unrepresented by unions. The United Auto Employees symbolize just one Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, however they weren’t concerned within the European strikes.
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