Warning strikes at VW: Employees defend themselves against wage cuts!

Warning strikes at VW: Employees defend themselves against wage cuts!

The situation is peaking up: the obligation to peace in the negotiations for wages of around 120,000 employees at Volkswagen AG ends today at midnight. From December 1st, warning strikes will be on the agenda after IG Metall and works council rejected the VW management's proposals for cost relief. According to the union representative Thorsten Gröger, these warning strikes are "so urgent that the company cannot overlook them". The massive wage reduction of ten percent as well as impending work closures and layoffs ensure significant tensions between employees and group management, such as vienna.at reports.

In another dramatic step, IG Metall called for tens of thousands of employees in almost 70 companies to warning strikes. At Audi in Ingolstadt alone, around 16,000 workers laid down work for a while. Other important companies such as Siemens and BMW are also affected, which the union would like to register as a strength in the negotiating position. Price and strikes are to be continued in order to put pressure on employers who have so far not been willing to comply with the demands for a wage increase of 5.5 percent. Instead, employers only offered 2.3 percent in extended terms, which further hardens the fronts, according to the information from Augsburger-allgemeine.de .

confrontation before the third round of negotiations

The upcoming negotiations on Wednesday will be crucial to prevent another flare up of the conflicts. If both sides cannot agree, the industrial struggles are no longer to be stopped. Jürgen Wechsler, the head of IG Metall in Bavaria, described these negotiations as the “last chance” for the employer to present a fair offer. In the past, similar negotiations only ended with a compromise after a long period of quarters, which both camps now consider challenging, especially since the feedback from the federal centers gives little hope of quick progress. So far there is a clear gap between the claims of IG Metall and the feedback from employers.