The underutilization of the headquarters and the market power of Tesla keep Volkswagen under pressure. A savings debate unsettles many workers. The works council wants to involve the workforce.
In the midst of the newly erupted management dispute at VW, the works council, management and inspectors want to inform employees about how to deal with production downtimes and cost pressures.
A meeting that was initially set up as a large works meeting is now being organized at the Wolfsburg headquarters as a smaller “workforce information” due to the tense Corona situation. The situation is also tense in other respects: The quarrels between CEO Herbert Diess and the supervisory board are obviously intensifying again.
New speculation
Shortly before the information event, new speculations had circulated yesterday that the manager should have clashed with the works council and with the state of Lower Saxony. Nobody in corporate circles wanted to say openly that Diess might have fallen out of favor. But the mood, so it was said by several people in the vicinity of the inspectors, was extremely bad.
According to information from the “Handelsblatt”, for example, leaders are said to have even expressed their distrust in the boss at a meeting last week. In the meantime, preparations have also been made for the mediation committee in the supervisory board to deal with the composition of the board of directors. A source denied that such procedural steps had already been formally initiated. Regardless of this, however, one is increasingly irritated by the behavior of the group leader.
Criticism of Diess
The boom at Volkswagen has been crooked again for several weeks. Works councils in particular criticize Diess’ communication style and feel constantly provoked. On the other hand, supporters of the manager consider wake-up calls to the cost situation to be entirely appropriate.
The workforce representatives are also expecting Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) and IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann, who both sit on the board of directors. Diess had only planned an appointment with investors in the USA for Thursday, but announced its appearance in Wolfsburg after severe criticism from works council boss Daniela Cavallo.
In terms of content, it should be about the current underutilization of the main plant, the largest car factory in the world, and the staggering of possible further models. The powerful works council is calling for at least one additional electrical project for Wolfsburg, which comes before the “Trinity”, which will probably start in 2026.
Competitor Tesla
The US rival Tesla is about to start its new “Gigafactory” near Berlin. At the same time, the chip crisis and, in some cases, the difficult procurement of raw materials are slowing down production in the foreseeable future. Tens of thousands of VW employees have been on short-time work again and again for months. In 2021 there could be as little production in Wolfsburg as in the late 1950s.
This has long called for higher profitability and productivity. At the end of 2020, further steps to lower fixed costs and downsizing within existing programs were discussed with the works council. The chairman of the board of directors was recently excited about new considerations in a supervisory board meeting – the exact motivation and interpretation of the naming of up to 30,000 potentially endangered jobs in an “extreme scenario” remained unclear.
Cavallo was particularly bothered by the fact that, allegedly, without involving the employee representatives, savings calculations were already circulating in top management. Since then, the relationship between her and Diess has also been considered tense.
When Diess first declared that he was staying away from the meeting, the works council chief reacted in an unusually sharp tone: “Herbert Diess prefers Wall Street investors to his own workforce.” This is unprecedented in VW history and shows «once again that the CEO of the Group has neither empathy nor feeling for the situation of the workforce even in this crisis. He is simply not interested in what moves the workforce. “
Diess then gave in. In the Volkswagen employee portal, he emphasized that dialogue was “very important to him, as there are huge tasks ahead of us, especially at our headquarters in Wolfsburg”. In favor of the meeting, he postponed “the important trip” to America.
Quarterly figures
The figures for the third quarter were mixed. Sales fell by 4 percent to 56.9 billion euros, and adjusted earnings before interest and taxes by 12 percent to 2.8 billion euros. The interim balance showed how acute the delivery problems for chips are. The brands VW Pkw, Seat and Skoda from the group “Volume” all made operational losses, the core division VW recorded a loss of 184 million euros.
“The results show once again that we now have to systematically drive forward improvements in productivity in the volume sector,” said Diess. By 2030 he wants to make the main plant in Wolfsburg fit for the competition with Tesla, this challenge will be great. “We certainly need job cuts to do this.”
Source From: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
