Volkswagen workers across Germany escalated their labor dispute with management by walking off their jobs for several hours on Monday, and their union threatened longer strikes if their demands were not met.
The automaker is in the middle of labor negotiations with IG Metall, the union representing most of its workers, as the company tries to reduce costs in an effort to return it to profitability. Volkswagen is seeking 10-percent wage cuts and threatening to close factories in Germany, the first such move in its 87-year history.
Thousands of workers at nine of the company’s plants in Germany, as well as several other subsidiaries that are covered under a wage agreement with the automaker, staged two-hour strikes on Monday, demanding that Volkswagen guarantee their jobs and keep its factories open.
IG Metall has threatened to start longer walkouts, or open-ended strikes, unless it is able to reach an agreement with Volkswagen managers.
“If necessary, this will be the toughest collective-bargaining battle Volkswagen has ever seen,” said Thorsten Gröger, the chief negotiator and district manager for the union. “Volkswagen will have to decide at the negotiating table how long and how intense this dispute has to be.”
The labor battle, the company’s first involving strikes since 2018, comes as Volkswagen, Germany’s leading automaker, faces slowing demand for its cars in Europe and Asia, as well as increased competition from Chinese automakers.
“Volkswagen respects the right of employees to take part in a warning strike,” a company representative said in an emailed statement on Monday, adding that measures had been taken to try to minimize the effect of the strikes on customers.
Volkswagen remains interested in reaching “a sustainable and jointly supported solution,” the company said.
The two sides are scheduled to meet on Dec. 9 for a fourth round of talks that have so far remained deadlocked. Germany’s labor system guarantees employees certain rights in the workplace and, in the case of Volkswagen, that has meant that protracted strikes are relatively rare.
But this fight, coming at a time of political uncertainty after the collapse of the coalition government in Berlin, coupled with a near-stagnant German economy and an automotive industry in transformation, could challenge Germany’s traditional, cooperation-based model of labor negotiations.
“It is important that we fight and show our teeth,” Daniela Cavallo, who leads Volkswagen’s works council and is a member of IG Metall, told hundreds of workers who were striking at the company’s Wolfsburg headquarters on Monday.
Last week, Volkswagen rejected a union proposal that involved forgoing wage increases in exchange for job guarantees by setting up a fund to be tapped when things get tight in the future. IG Metall had calculated that the offer would save the company 1.5 billion euros, about $1.6 billion, but Volkswagen said the proposal fell short of the long-term structural change that they had deemed necessary.
Over the weekend, the union hosted a late-night party outside the Volkswagen factory in Emden to mark the end of a weekslong “peace period,” which started at the beginning of wage negotiations, but ran out midnight on Sunday.
Bratwursts sizzled on grills and workers dressed in bright red union vests sipped hot mulled wine, making it look as if they were celebrating the holiday season. But the tone was serious.
“There is no other issue around the dinner table anymore,” Torsten Hasenpusch, a representative for IG Metall in Emden told the German public television broadcaster NDR. “Will I lose my job? Can we keep up our standard of living? It’s all people can think about.”
The post Volkswagen Unions Begin Short Strikes and Threaten More appeared first on New York Times.
