Thousands of Volkswagen employees went on strike on Monday as a labor dispute escalated, with unions warning that the crisis-hit German car giant intended mass layoffs and plant closures.
Waving placards that read: “You want war, we are ready!” raised the red flag of the powerful IG Metall union, and workers at factories across the country opposed management plans that would make significant cuts.
VW has been hit hard by high domestic manufacturing costs, a slow transition to electric vehicles and stiff competition in China, its major market.
The VW Group, which owns 10 brands from Audi and Porsche to Skoda and SEAT, says it “respects workers’ rights” and is working “constructively” to reach “durable solutions that are collectively supported.” He said he believes in “dialogue.”
It also said it had taken “measures to ensure urgent deliveries” during the strike action.
IG Metall and the union have been fighting to protect jobs since VW announced in September that it was considering the unprecedented step of closing some German plants that employ around 120,000 people. It’s here.
“Our colleagues are angry. Their jobs have been threatened for three months and they have finally expressed their views,” a spokesperson for IG Metall at the VW plant in the eastern city of Zwickau told AFP. “I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to do it,” he said.
Thousands of workers marched along a convoy of new electric cars leaving the Zwickau plant as part of the industrial action, and strikes were also seen at plants from Hannover to VW’s historic headquarters in Wolfsburg.
Amid cheers from the crowd, blaring horns and banging drums, works council president Daniela Cavallo told the rally that VW bosses were “selling out Germany as an industrial location” and stripping workers of their rights. He said that he is doing so.
But she said the “Volkswagen family” was united and had “great strength” to fight the protracted labor dispute.
IG Metall announced over the weekend that industrial action would begin with a series of short-term “warning strikes” on Monday after rejecting the union’s bid for job protection last week.
Union negotiator Torsten Greger warned that this would be the “toughest wage dispute in Volkswagen’s history”.
“Volkswagen set our collective bargaining agreement on fire,” he said, accusing the company’s board of “throwing an open petrol drum into it.”
“What’s going to happen is a conflict caused by Volkswagen. We didn’t want it to happen, but we’re going to do everything we can to do it as long as it takes.”
Union representatives said they want VW to close at least three plants in Germany, cut tens of thousands of jobs and leave remaining workers to face a 10% pay cut. .
The German industrial giant’s crisis comes as the euro zone’s top economy struggles and political uncertainty mounts with elections looming in February.
Volkswagen’s perilous financial situation was highlighted in October when it reported a 64% drop in third-quarter profit to 1.58 billion euros.
The slowdown in business in China, where homegrown rivals outsell the German automaker, has been particularly hard.
VW cited “economic reasons” when it announced the sale of its Xinjiang operations in China last week, but the company was also under pressure to pull out of the northwest region over human rights concerns.
Further clouding the outlook is the EU’s move to impose high tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, which VW fears could trigger retaliatory measures.
Its woes reflect a broader crisis in Europe’s auto industry, with weak demand and a slower-than-expected transition to electric vehicles.
In Germany, Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz recently cut their profit forecasts, and the industry’s major suppliers have announced job cuts.
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This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to the text.
