The works council at carmaker Volkswagen (VW) says the company plans to shutter several factories in Germany and cut tens of thousands of jobs in its home country in the next years.
The top workers’ representative of the largest German car company said that at least three car plants would be closed down and almost all other ones would also be affected by the plans to cut the company’s domestic workforce, public broadcaster WDR reported.
VW works council chairwoman Daniela Cavallo said some departments should be relocated abroad while others would be given up altogether. “All VW factories in Germany are affected by these plans. None are safe,” Cavallo said, without specifying which measures should be implemented where.
VW‘s management did not confirm the works council’s statement, arguing that it still was in “confidentidal talks” with its labour representatives, public broadcaster NDR reported. However, it added that the company’s situtation was “serious” and that it had arrived at a “decisive point in its history.”
The company currently runs ten factories Germany and employs about 120,000 people in one the country’s most important industry branches. About half of the workforce is located at Volkswagen’s main factory and headquarters in Wolfsburg in northern state Lower Saxony.
Engulfed in crisis related to several causes, including a slow uptake of electric mobility in Germany, weakening market shares in important export markets like China, and supply-chain related difficulties, the automaker’s management is facing the ire of its works councils ahead of the next round of collective bargaining with trade union IG Metall this week, NDR reported.
Works council chair Cavallo said VW had no “coherent overall concept” of how it should emerge from the crisis. Plant closures, layoffs and cuts to the company’s collective agreement had been on the table for weeks.
Faced with the transformation to sustainable mobility and away from combustion engines, German car manufacturers and industry suppliers generally are struggling with global competition, weak sales figures and the high costs of switching to electric vehicles.
The shift to electric is bringing unprecedented challenges for the car industry across Europe. In the face of increasingly ambitious climate targets, a phase-out of the combustion engine looks all but inevitable and is a set policy in an increasing number of countries.
Estimates differ widely on how many existing jobs will eventually be lost in Europe’s automotive industry during the transition, and to what extent they can be compensated by new jobs emerging in the sector, for example in battery production.
Hit particularly hard by the industry crisis, Volkswagen has recently terminated a job security agreement with unions in Germany that had been in place for decade. The government is currently debating measures to help the sector, but opinions differ on how to address the industry’s continuing dependence on combustion engine technology.
As it struggles on various fronts with the downturn in sales, VW is looking to improve its electric vehicle business overseas by reviving its U.S.-only brand Scout Motors and introducing a new concept that could change the industry, news site Focus reports.
The new Scout Traveler and Terra models are to be sold directly to customers, without having to go through car dealers. One advantage of the direct sales model is pricing: the customer knows from the start what the electric car costs and there are no unexpected surcharges that dealers often add for popular vehicles.
Clean Energy Wire. Reproduced with permission.