VW strike escalates: 100,000 employees stop work!

VW strike escalates: 100,000 employees stop work!

At Volkswagen, the collective bargaining conflict is escalating dramatically after almost 103,000 employees across the country resigned from their jobs on Monday. The fourth round of collective bargaining ended without an agreement, prompting the IG Metall union to call for another four-hour warning strike. At nine locations, including Wolfsburg, Hanover and Emden, workers stopped work for four hours each, further escalating the already tense situation. Volkswagen negotiator Arne Meiswinkel confirmed that a viable solution is currently still a long way off, while IG Metall negotiator Thorsten Gröger is pushing for urgently needed progress to avoid redundancies and factory closures, as [ndr.de] reports.

The reasons for the walkout are varied. The current round of negotiations is about preserving the jobs demanded by IG Metall and an end to the announced wage cuts. Christiane Brenner, the chairwoman of IG Metall, spoke in the media about the “infuriating and astonishing” behavior of VW management and emphasized the indispensability of a constructive dialogue. A proposal from the union that aimed to reduce wage increases had already been rejected in advance. If no agreement is reached this Monday, IG Metall could announce radical measures in the form of a 24-hour warning strike, as [hna.de] reported. The impending closure of locations is also an issue, while utilization at various production sites, such as in Wolfsburg, has fallen below 60 percent.

The next round of negotiations will bring new challenges for all parties involved. The union plans to keep up the pressure on management, especially after warning strikes have already been announced that could last into next year if no agreement is reached. Gröger himself warned urgently: “Then in 2025 there will only be one answer to the austerity hammer: the strike hammer.”