Crisis at car manufacturer: VW terminates almost all collective agreements

dpa | In the struggle for stricter austerity measures, the car manufacturer Volkswagen has terminated a large part of its collective agreements - including the important collective agreement. The company wants to adjust various regulations in view of the current cost pressure, VW announced after a discussion with employee representatives in Hanover. A spokesman did not give an exact number of terminated contracts. According to IG Metall there are ten.

According to the Volkswagen brand's HR director, Arne Meiswinkel, the economic environment has become seriously worse for the automotive industry and thus also for Volkswagen. "These market changes are structural and profound. Among other things, Chinese manufacturers are pushing into Europe with cheap exports," said Meiswinkel. This increases price and competitive pressure enormously. The measures from the 2030 future plan must therefore be implemented quickly and consistently.

With the timely termination on December 31, 2026, the company wants to open up room for negotiation. The collective agreement regulates basic working conditions for the more than 100,000 VW employees in Germany. The in-house tariff includes a total of 13 contracts. They regulate, among other things, working conditions, working hours and allowances. The future collective agreement 2024 and the employment security agreed therein until the end of 2030 are not affected.

According to employees, VW employees could start to feel the first consequences from January 2027. The union and the works council announced resistance. “This is a bad foul on the workforce and another shameless attempt to reach into the employees’ wallets,” said Lower Saxony’s IG Metall boss Thorsten Gröger. We won't accept that. VW works council boss Daniela Cavallo expected a “violent dispute at the turn of the year”. Agnes Conrad, left-wing spokeswoman in the Bundestag for the automotive industry, said: "The termination of ten collective agreements is a clear declaration of war on the employees. They have already made massive concessions and should now once again pay for the company's crisis with their income, working hours and collective bargaining rights.

On Wednesday, representatives from Volkswagen, IG Metall and the works council met for a so-called review meeting. The employees who originally called the meeting demanded clarity as to whether and how VW will keep the promises made in the 2024 collective agreement. They saw these agreements at risk due to the tightened austerity plans. Management wanted to explain why, in its view, the savings agreed at the time were no longer sufficient.

The 2024 collective agreement provides for the reduction of 35,000 jobs in Germany by 2030. In addition, bonuses and allowances were reduced and wage increases were suspended. In return, VW will forego redundancies and plant closures for operational reasons until the end of 2030 and has promised investments and new products for the German locations.

The review meeting was the first major meeting between companies and employee representatives since the supervisory board's decision at the beginning of September. The management around VW boss Oliver Blume is supposed to restructure the group as part of the agreed future plan and save billions.

In addition to the current plans, 50,000 jobs are to be lost worldwide, up to half of which could be in Germany. Specific programs still need to be negotiated with the employees.