IG Metall is protesting loudly against the fact that car companies in Germany are closing factories and cutting staff on a large scale. At the start of a whole wave of actions in Germany, the first chairwoman of the union, Christiane Benner, accused the companies on Monday morning of taking an irresponsible course with a one-sided focus on cost reductions. "For years, companies have been successful with their employees. Now board members are driving the industry into the wall at full speed and then committing hit-and-runs," Benner told journalists at the Volkswagen Group factory gate in Wolfsburg.
In a speech to the employees in Hall 11 of the VW main plant, she once again took aim at the management of the VW Group: “One thing is clear: Squeezing the last cent out of the employees, distributing it to the shareholders and closing down plants: That is no way out of the crisis!” said Benner, who, as head of IG Metall, also sits on the VW supervisory board.
The battle that the employee representatives in Wolfsburg are currently waging with the company management there has a ripple effect for all manufacturers and suppliers in this country, for the entire industry: “The smelters are burning everywhere right now,” she shouted to the employees. “Companies like VW, BMW, Audi, Bosch, Mercedes and Porsche stood for great cars and good quality that were exported all over the world.” The fact that the industry is now in crisis is not the employees' fault.
Whether Wolfsburg, Zwickau, Stuttgart, Saarbrücken or the Ruhr area: In many large economic regions, IG Metall called on employees of car manufacturers and suppliers on Monday to send a clear signal. The motto was: “Future instead of clear-cutting – solidarity is our strongest brand”. According to the information, there should be various activities in more than 200 locations. These included internal company meetings, active lunch breaks, star marches and public rallies. The union had previously expected more than 100,000 people to take part.
In Baden-Württemberg, employees of the automotive industry at around 50 locations from different companies took part in the day of action. More than 20,000 people protested in front of Gate 7 of the car manufacturer Mercedes in Sindelfingen this morning. Barbara Resch, district manager of IG Metall Baden-Württemberg, sharply attacked the board of the traditional company. Management rested for too long and put their feet up while the employees delivered shift after shift. “We won’t let ourselves be taken for fools,” said Resch. And if you don't want to hear, you have to feel.
Mercedes general works council leader Ergun Lümali said they wanted to make it clear that they could defend themselves. If the board thinks they can rip you off, then they will show that they won't continue with them. The board has lost all sense of the employees, said Lümali. The employee representative is responding, among other things, to the company's demand that employees in Germany work not 35 but 40 hours a week without wage compensation. Mercedes has also threatened to close the plant in Germany and build additional production capacity in Eastern Europe if the works council and union do not move on the issue of extending working hours.
IG Metall organized further demonstrations at the locations of the sports car manufacturer Porsche and the truck manufacturer Daimler Truck as well as at the factory gates of the suppliers Mahle and Bosch. Mahle employees wanted to march from the factory in Stuttgart-Feuerbach in a protest march to the factory in Bad Cannstatt in the early afternoon. In leaflets, the employees of the company, which for many years was primarily known for its pistons, called for “to develop further alternatives to the automotive business, to involve employees more in innovation processes and to secure existing product groups in Stuttgart and Kornwestheim”.
A main topic at Mahle was the employers' demand for an extension of weekly working hours to 40 hours - a request that General Works Council Chairman Boris Schwürz rejected. "The 40-hour week, an unpaid extension of working hours, does not solve any problems. Working longer does not automatically create more orders, new markets or innovations," said Schwürz to the F.A.Z. "Politicians must finally create reliable framework conditions for the auto industry. We need economic policy and management that does not focus on how to save a euro, but on how to invest and earn a euro!"
The employers, on the other hand, are calling on the union ahead of the upcoming collective bargaining round not to turn a blind eye to negotiations about longer working hours. “We need cost reductions to stabilize the production site,” said the chairman of the employers’ association Südwestmetall, Peter Sebastian Krause, to the F.A.Z. “Longer working hours shouldn’t be a taboo zone.” The Nordmetall association also turned against the union's representation on Monday that the planned cost cuts were an “attack” on employees or even a clear-cut.
Investments in software, battery technology and new vehicle models are absolutely necessary and an important signal for employees and the German locations, said Nordmetall. But they have to be paid for and earned beforehand. “Declining sales figures in China or harmful US tariffs cannot be explained away by protest actions in front of German factory gates.”
At the works meeting at its headquarters this morning, VW management confirmed that the group was making progress towards the reduction of 35,000 jobs decided upon two years ago. 28,800 departures have already been contractually agreed and 16,300 employees have already left the company, said the head of the parent brand VW, Thomas Schäfer. But all of this is not enough to respond to the increasingly strong headwind - which is also why management now has to make further cuts. “The situation has worsened significantly in recent months and is worse than originally thought.”
The background to the union protests are the planned new savings with which all automobile companies are currently reacting to price pressure in Europe, US tariffs and the expansion of Chinese rivals. In Wolfsburg, the union had already made it clear that morning that it also sees politicians as having a duty. VW works council boss Daniela Cavallo repeated the call for new protective tariffs that should also cover Chinese plug-in hybrid models, a segment in which the Chinese are quickly gaining market share in Europe.
The price of electricity for industry must also be cheaper and the EU's subsidy policy must be adjusted so that politicians can better support the industry in the crisis. With a view to the pension discussion in Germany, Cavallo said that the automotive industry needs clarity as to whether the so-called block model in partial retirement will be canceled or not. The Pension Commission had called for appropriate interventions, but the reform has been hotly debated again since the AfD's election successes. This causes uncertainty in automotive companies, where partial retirement is seen as an important component for socially acceptable job cuts.
In the direction of VW's major shareholders, Cavallo added that they must do their part to overcome the crisis and leave as much money as possible in the company. Politicians could also create better framework conditions for this, for example by changing the taxation of dividends. So far, a partial waiver of distributions has been associated with disadvantages because full taxes are still due in the case of dividends that have already been decided. A reform of this regulation would be “a good, new instrument that fits this time,” said Cavallo.
