Car industry Almost 100,000 participants in VW warning strikes
IG Metall has ended its warning strikes at Volkswagen for the time being. A total of almost 100,000 employees took part in the strike yesterday and today, according to the union.
03.12.2024, 11:16
SDA
The strike, which lasted two hours on each shift, ended in the morning at the end of the night shift. Since the start of the early shift, regular working hours have resumed in Wolfsburg and the other plants.
The union counted a total of 98,650 participants at the nine affected locations, including 47,000 in Wolfsburg, 12,500 in Kassel-Baunatal and 9,000 each in Zwickau and Hanover. In the wage dispute over wage cuts, plant closures and job cuts, IG Metall had called for warning strikes at nine of VW's ten German sites on Monday.
"First, massive impact"
"The first warning strikes were an absolutely resolute signal from the workforce against Volkswagen's harsh Board of Management plans," said Thorsten Gröger, IG Metall's chief negotiator. Almost 100,000 employees had made it loudly clear that they would fight for their jobs, their families and their future. "That was the first, powerful impact of a winter of protest!"
According to IG Metall, the turnout was significantly higher than during the last major wave of warning strikes at Volkswagen in 2018. According to the union, more than 50,000 employees took part in Wolfsburg, Hanover, Emden, Kassel-Baunatal, Braunschweig and Salzgitter.
Next collective bargaining round on December 9
Next Monday, representatives of the company and employees will meet in Wolfsburg for their next round of collective bargaining. Head of the works council Daniela Cavallo expects the course to be set then: either there will be a rapprochement or a further escalation.
The collective bargaining round concerns the pay of around 120,000 employees at the Volkswagen AG plants, where a separate company wage agreement applies. In addition, there are more than 10,000 employees at VW Saxony, for whom an alignment with the company pay scale was agreed in 2021.
VW is demanding a ten percent pay cut due to the Group's difficult situation. Plant closures and compulsory redundancies are also on the cards. IG Metall wants to prevent this and is instead demanding a future for all sites - without plant closures and compulsory redundancies.
