The management of the German car manufacturer Volkswagen confirmed this Wednesday that it wanted to reduce the salaries of its employees by 10% to get out of the crisis and adopt other measures to limit remuneration, after a day of negotiations with the unions.
“Only successful companies can offer secure jobs. This is our goal. To do this we must, in particular, reduce our labor costs,” Arne Meiswinkel, the group’s chief negotiator, explained in a press release.
Volkswagen is immersed in a historic restructuring to reduce its costs, with tens of thousands of jobs at risk and factory closures not ruled out. In the proposal sent to the press no plans to close plants are mentioned. But the group “maintains its threat of factory closures and drastic job cuts,” the IG Metall union said Wednesday.
Review of the bonus system.
In the statement, the car manufacturer specifies that it wants to review its bonus system and adapt the number of apprentices “to the real needs” of the company. Thorsten Gröger, negotiator for the IG Metall union, called these plans “poisonous measures” during a press conference at the end of the day in Wolfsburg, at the group’s historic headquarters.
To achieve the set savings targets, almost 4 billion euros according to the newspaper Handelsblatt, “we can also consider discussing the prospects for the works and the employment guarantee,” added Arne Meiswinkel in Wolfsburg. “We are not willing to talk about labor costs in isolation, but we want a global plan, a future plan for the company,” responded Daniela Cavallo, president of the group’s works council, during the press service.
The main European automobile group saw its net profit fall by 63.7% in the third quarter, to 1,580 million euros, weighed down by high costs and the drop in sales in China, its largest market. Strikes are possible at Germany’s largest industrial employer after a period of mandatory social dialogue, which will begin in December.
Source: BFM TV