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‘We cannot continue as before’

Auto giant Volkswagen plans to close at least three factories in Germany and cut tens of thousands of jobs, the leader of the company’s works council told VW employees on Monday, prompting top executives to say VW needed to make changes to stay competitive.

All other VW factories in Germany will be downsized according to management’s plan, Daniela Cavallo said at an event in Wolfsburg, where VW is headquartered. Bosses also planned to implement an across-the-board pay cut, the works council leader said.

VW did not comment on possible plant closures or mass layoffs, but said “concrete proposals to reduce labor costs” would be presented during the upcoming collective bargaining.

Executives at the automaker argued that high costs at German factories necessitate deep cuts, but did not comment directly on reports of factory closures or mass layoffs.

“We cannot continue as before,” Thomas Schäfer, the CEO of the car brand Volkswagen, said in a statement on Monday. “We are not productive enough at our German sites and our factory costs are currently 25% to 50% higher than we planned. This means that individual German factories are twice as expensive as those of the competition.”

Cavallo and other union leaders at VW vowed fierce resistance to cuts.

The VW brand has been struggling with high costs for years and profits lag behind other subsidiaries of the VW Group, such as Škoda, SEAT and Audi.

Strikes coming?

Cavallo warned during her remarks before an outdoor meeting of about 25,000 VW employees: “I can only warn all board members and everyone at the top of the company – don’t mess with us, with the VW staff,” she said. said to applause.

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The IG Metall union, which represents most of VW’s factory workers in Germany, also vowed to oppose any plant closures.

“This is a deep stab in the heart of the hardworking VW employees,” said Thorsten Gröger of IG Metall, district manager of the union in the western state of Lower Saxony, where VW is based.

“We want to secure locations, occupancy rates and employment in the long term. If management wants to herald the end of Germany, they should expect resistance they cannot imagine!” said Groger.

Uwe Kunstmann, head of the VW Saxony works council, which represents VW workers in eastern Germany, has already warned that the company is facing a “hot winter” of labor unrest.

If VW management’s position does not change, workers will walk out in nationwide strikes by December 1 and paralyze VW’s operations, he said.

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