Volkswagen and its German labour force aim to reach a jobs pact by November at the latest so that the car maker can decide where to allocate investments for production, senior officials said.
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“We are under time pressure,” personnel director Horst Neumann told Reuters at a presentation for a new sports coupe concept car, noting its supervisory board normally decides that month on investments in plant and equipment in the years ahead.
This includes allocating resources for building a new version of its flagship Golf model at VW’s main German plant in Wolfsburg, he told the news agency.
Reuters said talks with the works council and the IG Metall union are set to resume on 8 September. Neumann said he expected difficult negotiations as the parties analyse capacity utilisation at each of the six western German VW assembly and parts plants.
Works council head Bernd Osterloh told Reuters on Friday he agreed that key points of the package had to be agreed in time for the November board meeting.
“We will do our part for this, and that is what we expect from the company as well,” he said.
He reportedly called for binding agreements on which products will be built at which plants. “And we want management to make reliable commitments to long-term employment,” he added.
Reuters noted that VW wants productivity improvements, job cuts and longer working hours to improve results at its core VW brand, which has the car world’s highest labour costs, but labour officials worry, however, that returning to a 35-hour work week from a 28.8-hour week now could cost far more than the 20,000 jobs VW says are at risk from the reorganisation.
