{"id":14377,"date":"2026-05-15T13:33:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/14377\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T13:33:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T13:33:15","slug":"union-and-employees-insist-on-no-vw-plant-closures-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/14377\/","title":{"rendered":"Union and employees insist on no VW plant closures in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/455f00a29fdf1001307e3bfbdd2c0a2b.jpeg\" alt=\"FILE PHOTO - Dark clouds pass over a Volkswagen logo at the Sandkamp gate of the VW plant in Wolfsburg. (zu dpa: \u00abUnion and employees insist on no VW plant closures in Germany\u00bb) Julian Stratenschulte\/dpa\" loading=\"eager\" height=\"537\" width=\"800\" class=\"yf-lglytj  loaded\"\/> FILE PHOTO &#8211; Dark clouds pass over a Volkswagen logo at the Sandkamp gate of the VW plant in Wolfsburg. (zu dpa: \u00abUnion and employees insist on no VW plant closures in Germany\u00bb) Julian Stratenschulte\/dpa      <\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Powerful German manufacturing trade union IG Metall and the Volkswagen works council have dismissed speculation about possible plant closures at VW in Germany.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">&#8220;Of course, all sites will remain open,&#8221; reads a joint statement issued on Friday by IG Metall president Christiane Benner, VW general works council chair Daniela Cavallo and IG Metall regional director Thorsten Gr\u00f6ger.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The employee representatives point to the collective bargaining agreement reached at the end of 2024 when, after lengthy negotiations, the company and the union had agreed on a restructuring programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The core VW brand plans to cut 35,000 jobs in Germany by 2030. In return, plant closures and redundancies for operational reasons were ruled out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">This compromise must not now be called into question, the employee representatives said. &#8220;There will be no plant closures with us as the General Works Council and IG Metall,&#8221; their statement continues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">The Works Council and the union also brought new business areas into the discussion. They said that if existing business models became &#8220;no longer be fully viable in the foreseeable future&#8221;, then new ones would &#8220;simply have to be found.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">In this context, the employee side also signalled a willingness to cooperate with external partners. What matters are good jobs, future prospects and secure employment, they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">There has been recent speculation about the future of the VW plant in Osnabr\u00fcck, which has a workforce of around 2,300.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">Production of the Porsche models built in Osnabr\u00fcck finished at the end of last year, and production of the VW T-Roc Cabrio will also cease in mid-2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-1fy9kyt\">There is no follow-up order as yet, although there is speculation that defence contractors could take over the plant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE PHOTO &#8211; Dark clouds pass over a Volkswagen logo at the Sandkamp gate of the VW plant&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18367,18366,5,17781,18365,5356,8458],"class_list":["post-14377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-collective-bargaining-agreement","tag-employee-representatives","tag-germany","tag-ig-metall","tag-plant-closures","tag-volkswagen","tag-works-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}