VW was considering closing up to three factories in Germany and had been calling on its workforce to accept a 10% pay cut.<\/p>\n
At the time, the union was calling for a 7% increase.<\/p>\n
While the deal will also see a reduction in production capacity across its plants, it was celebrated by union leaders.<\/p>\n
“No site will be closed, no-one will be laid off for operational reasons and our company wage agreement will be secured for the long term,” said IG Metall’s works council chief Daniela Cavallo.<\/p>\n
“We have achieved a rock-solid solution under the most difficult economic conditions,” she added.<\/p>\n
The 35,000 job cuts by 2030 are expected to be found through different solutions such as offered early retirement.<\/p>\n
Under the agreement, a 5% wage increase that was previously agreed will also be suspended in 2025 and 2026.<\/p>\n
The union said this would help “support transformation” at the company. <\/p>\n
The number of apprenticeships on offer each year in Germany will be reduced from 1,400 to 600 from 2026 too, and it will look at shifting some production to Mexico.<\/p>\n
It is also looking at alternative options for its Dresden and Osnabrueck sites.<\/p>\n
But Oliver Blume, VW’s group chief executive, said in a statement that the agreement was “an important signal for the future viability of the Volkswagen brand”.<\/p>\n
Factory closures in Germany would have been unprecedented in the manufacturer’s history.<\/p>\n
VW, along with other German carmakers, has been badly affected by a decline in demand for its cars in China, previously a lucrative market.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Chinese brands have been moving into Europe, increasing competition for sales.<\/p>\n
During the talks, some 100,000 workers joined short, so-called “warning strikes” at sites across the country, in order to put pressure on the company’s management. <\/p>\n
The latest round of talks began on Monday, with negotiators apparently determined to get matters settled before Christmas.<\/p>\n
The German chancellor Olaf Scholz also welcomed the announcement, describing it as a “good, socially acceptable solution”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VW was considering closing up to three factories in Germany and had been calling on its workforce to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[2000,299,1824],"class_list":{"0":"post-312061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-germany"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114959501604740537","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}