By Martha Grevat
December 11, 2024
Strike rally outside Volkswagen’s largest German plant in Wolfsburg, Dec. 2, 2024.
Over 100,000 autoworkers struck nine Volkswagen plants in Germany on Dec. 2. The primary issues are VW’s plans to close three German plants and cut workers’ pay. The plant closings would be the first in the company’s 87-year history.
VW’s previous contract with IG Metall, the union representing German autoworkers, did not allow plant closures or job cuts, and workers’ wages were higher than most factory workers in Germany. But the contract, which expired in December, prevented workers from striking.
The strikes, called by IG Metall, each lasted two hours. About 20,000 workers gathered inside and outside VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany, where its largest German plant is also located, on Dec. 5. They were organized by the union and the Works Council, which is a type of joint worker-management body that sometimes speaks on workers’ behalf when the union rank and file are angry.
VW, Europe’s largest auto company, claims that the so-called “cost-cutting” measures — job cuts and pay reductions of at least 10% and as high as 18% — are necessary to keep the company competitive. Its profits have fallen for the first three quarters of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023. But they are still almost 4.5 billion euros — about $4.75 billion!
Works Council Chair Daniela Cavallo — who had offered wage concessions to VW in hopes that the plant closings would be canceled — recently countered that workers were not responsible for VW’s business woes, “and that’s why a solution involving plant closures, mass layoffs and cuts to monthly pay is still out of the question.” (jungewelt.de, Dec. 5)
“It borders on mockery when [Volkswagen Group CEO] Oliver Blume stands in front of the workforce and wishes them a Merry Christmas, while at the same time the VW board would prefer to put letters of termination under the Christmas tree for the employees,” said IG Metall negotiator Thorsten Groeger. (Reuters.com, Dec. 5)
On Dec. 9 workers held four-hour strikes, with strikes of a longer, possibly indefinite, duration taking place in the new year if issues are not resolved. Another mass rally took place at the Wolfsburg headquarters.
The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) is calling for a reduction of the workweek to 30 hours with no cut in pay. This would distribute the work to more workers, eliminating the rationale for job reductions.
VW union members are not the only workers whose jobs are threatened. About 5,800 Ford jobs in Germany are slated for elimination, and more attacks on German workers are threatened by Stellantis as well as parts suppliers and steel and mining companies. Altogether several hundred thousand jobs in Germany could be lost .
But the workers of the world are beginning to fight back. Italian workers facing job cuts struck Stellantis in October, and United Auto Workers union members could be on strike against Stellantis not long after the December holidays. Global solidarity is needed to beat back the vicious attacks by the capitalists on wages and job security.
Martha Grevatt is a retired UAW Stellantis worker.
