The head of the Porsche works council, Uwe Hück, has hit back at VW works council chief, Bernd Osterloh, for saying that Porsche has taken the VW works council to the cleaners.

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According to dpa-AFX, Hück said he was immensely irritated by Osterloh’s recent remarks about Porsche not meeting with him to discuss future VW worker representation on the new Porsche Holding SE supervisory board. Hück said he had been in regular contact with Osterloh and kept him informed along the way, even though the matter is, strictly speaking, a matter for Porsche only.


Hück went as far as calling Osterloh  an “out of control boxer”.


Osterloh told the German press agency that he suspected Porsche had always intended to reduce the influence of the VW workforce on the management of the company.


The VW works council has complained about the co-determination structure included in the structure of Porsche Holding SE as Volkswagen would effectively become part of the new company if Porsche increased its stake in Volkswagen to over 50%.

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If this were to happen, the Volkswagen supervisory board, on which Volkswagen employees are fully represented, would become redundant. The Porsche supervisory board would have a maximum of three VW employee representatives out of a total of 12 board members. Porsche employees would have the same number of representatives, even though they number just 12,000 workers, compared to 324,000 Volkswagen employees.


Osterloh said this would result in “first and second class colleagues.” Porsche employees would effectively have a power of veto over any decisions that Volkswagen employees reached.


Hück said that the VW workforce must understand that there is still a lot of detail to be agreed, and that workers’ rights would not be undermined in Porsche Holding. Three IG Metall union representatives have been involved in negotiations, he said.


Hück added that the dispute is no longer about workers’ rights, but about the distribution of power.

“Saying that a workforce of 324,000 carries more weight than one of 12,000 is capitalist talk. In a democratic social state, everyone has equal rights, whether they are big, small, fat or thin.”