Source: AFP
Volkswagen executives defended plans to consider unprecedented factory closures in Germany during a tense meeting on Wednesday with thousands of staff, saying falling sales had hit them hard.
Several thousand workers fearful for their future demonstrated at VW’s historic headquarters ahead of the rally, waving banners and blowing whistles.
Arno Antlitz, Volkswagen’s chief financial officer, said car sales in Europe are still well below pre-pandemic levels.
For Europe’s top carmaker, that meant a loss of about 500,000 vehicle sales a year, “the equivalent of about two factories,” he said.
“The market just isn’t there anymore,” he told the meeting, attended by about 25,000 employees, with some watching on screens outside.
“We have to increase productivity and reduce costs. We still have a year, maybe two years, to turn things around,” he added, without elaborating on the savings plan.
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The comments from Wolfsburg’s finance chief came two days after the shock announcement was first made to staff in an internal memo.
Volkswagen last year announced plans for a 10 billion euro ($11 billion) cost-savings program and has cut its workforce in the coming years to improve profitability.
But the team said these further measures are now needed after the disappointing recent results.
But the cost-cutting move at one of Germany’s best-known companies has alarmed government officials and put Volkswagen on a collision course with unions and its powerful works council.
“Tough Resistance”
Source: AFP
Daniela Cavallo, president of the works council, warned that VW’s management would face “fierce resistance from the workforce”, vowing not to close its watch.
The group “is not facing difficulties because of the German facilities and the cost of the German staff”, but because “the board is not doing its job”, he told the meeting.
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“We are being ripped apart,” VW worker Axel Wendschlaff, 59, told AFP on his way to the Wolfsburg plant, expressing concern for colleagues who might be affected.
“They should start with those at the top, throw out the people who are in charge,” Wenzlaff said.
The idea of possible plant closures in Germany and active layoffs was “something completely new,” said Michael Gadow, 66, a former toolmaker at the group, where a job is often considered to be for life.
Source: AFP
“It’s definitely a concern for a lot of employees who otherwise feel like they work in a very safe plant,” Gadow said of possible headcount reductions at the group.
In Belgium, workers at the group’s Brussels plant went on strike on Wednesday over threats to the future of the plant.
However, a site closure in Germany, where Volkswagen employs around 300,000 people across its various brands, would be the first in the group’s 87-year history.
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“A car country”
The problems at Volkswagen, which has struggled with the transition to electric vehicles and competition from rivals abroad, are a heavy blow to Chancellor Olaf Solz’s government at a time when the domestic economy was already struggling.
“Germany must remain a car country,” Labor Minister Hubertus Heil said on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting where ministers agreed on new support for electric cars.
He called on VW management to “ensure that a reasonable and socially acceptable solution is found and that VW remains strong.”
Source: AFP
Soltz himself has been following the situation “in detail,” his spokesman said at a press conference, adding that the team is responsible for finding a solution together with the workers.
“Volkswagen blood still flows in my veins,” said retired auto worker Eckard Siewertsen, 73, one of three generations of his family to work for Volkswagen.
Despite a series of crises at Volkswagen over the years, “we’ve always managed to get back on our feet,” Sievertsen told AFP in Wolfsburg.
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“I’m working on the assumption that it will work this time.”
Source: AFP
