| Volkswagen warned against 'historic mistake' of plant closures |
| Volkswagen has been warned by union leaders about making an "historic mistake" at the commencement of pay talks that are likely to determine how aggressively the automaker handles redundancies and possible plant closures in Germany. As well as fighting any such moves, the IG Metall union must also negotiate new labour deals for the core VW brand's 130,000 workers in Germany, after VW ended agreements that had safeguarded employment at six of its facilities in western Germany since the mid-1990s. "A good shepherd looks after his sheep and keeps them together. Volkswagen's shepherd is threatening to rip the skin off their bodies and then throw them out in a hurricane," Thorsten Groeger, IG Metall's chief negotiator with Volkswagen, told workers in Hanover. Meanwhile, works council boss Daniela Cavallo made reference to the expropriation of trade union funds during the Third Reich era. "With an average interest rate, this capital, which the Nazis had robbed from the labour movement at the time, would have generated billions of euros over the decades. This money, our money, is in the Volkswagen Group today," she said. |
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