The negotiating committees of Volkswagen AG and IG Metall Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt have this week continued negotiations on the 2024 collective bargaining round.
VW said the fourth round of negotiations on Volkswagen AG’s in-house collective agreement focused on an in-depth exchange of views on all aspects of the current collective bargaining process. The demands and proposals of both the IG Metall and the company were discussed collaboratively, the company said.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Arne Meiswinkel, chief negotiator at Volkswagen AG, said the discussions were constructive, but ‘we remain significantly apart on a solution’. She added: “However, further collaboration is needed to identify additional financial opportunities. The goal remains to find short-term and sustainable measures to reduce costs in order to secure the company’s competitiveness in the long term.”
VW said the employee side had submitted a counter proposal in the previous round of negotiations, which signalled its openness to a financial contribution from employees. The company welcomed this step, but pointed out that this proposal was ‘not sufficient to ensure a sustainable reduction in costs.’
VW emphasised the need to jointly identify additional measures with a sustainable impact. “We must develop a viable solution that enables us to invest in a sustainable product portfolio well into the 2030s. This will provide security and opportunities for both the company and its workforce,” said Meiswinkel.
Discussions are also ongoing at the company level with the General Works Council. Among the topics being addressed is the issue of overcapacity and factory costs in the German plants – a controversial area.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataThe next negotiation date has been set for December 16, 2024.
Volkswagen AG’s company collective agreement applies to around 120,000 employees at the plants in Wolfsburg, Braunschweig, Hanover, Salzgitter, Emden and Kassel as well as to Volkswagen Financial Services, Volkswagen Immobilien GmbH and dx.one GmbH.
Volkswagen AG has set out its positions in the negotiations in several areas:
- Volkswagen’s safeguard for jobs has been part of the collective agreement since 1994. By terminating the collective bargaining agreement for the future and the “Digital Transformation Roadmap” agreement, the company is reacting to the current economic and structural challenges with the goal of realigning the safeguards for production sites and jobs.
- The application of the Tarif Plus bracket is subject to a separate collective bargaining agreement [RTV T+] for employees in specialist or management positions. The working conditions of employees in the Tarif Plus bracket differ from those covered by the company’s standard collective bargaining agreement in terms of working hours, bonus and the use of a company car, for example. At the end of 2023, the company already announced a stabilisation for employees in this pay bracket upon their appointment. In the negotiations the company announced plans to restructure the bonus system for employees in the Tarif Plus bracket, with the aim of tying this to the collectively agreed profit-sharing bonus in the future.
- In its collective bargaining agreement for trainees, Volkswagen has committed to providing 1,400 training places each year. Due to lower demand, it has often been a major challenge in the past to ensure that the trainees were hired. By terminating this agreement, the goal is to adapt the number of training places offered and the hiring of trainees and dual students to reflect actual needs, thus ensuring better plannability for both employees and the company.
- Volkswagen deploys temporary workers to deal with production peaks and capacity fluctuations. By terminating the collective agreements on the deployment of temporary workers at Volkswagen, the company is seeking to deploy temporary workers on the collective terms and conditions customary for the sector and not at far higher costs than paid by competitors, as is the case at present.
- As a consequence of the current trend in the automotive industry in Europe, and especially in Germany as a business location, the company sees considerable need for action, over and above rejecting the demands of IG Metall. Volkswagen AG believes a contribution from its employees is necessary. For the collective bargaining process this entails calling for a 10 per cent cut in the pay of employees subject to collective agreements at Volkswagen AG.
- A future-proof, competitive standard collective bargaining agreement with uniform working conditions such as a 35-hour working week, eliminating protection for employees who joined the company prior to 2005 (HTV I), is a further building block for efficiency from Volkswagen’s perspective.
- Another efficiency measure that the company believes will help to safeguard its long-term success is eliminating anniversary bonuses and the collectively agreed bonus of 170 euros per month.
