Volkswagen’s War On Workers

The Volkswagen Group supervisory board has unanimously approved a restructuring package titled “Future Plan 2030,” which involves eliminating another 50,000 jobs to reach a total of 100,000 job cuts by the end of this decade.

IG Metall, the workers’ union, organised demonstrations involving shop stewards and union council members at 18 sites, including the company’s headquarters. Under German labour laws, the unions cannot legally launch strikes while an active collective bargaining agreement is in place.

“Warning strikes” are legal and 100,000 workers used this loophole to stage actions across Germany. These actions were short walkouts by workers. Union leaders try to use these short actions to “vent” steam and diffuse workers’ anger. But they showed the potential for real action.

On September 21st almost 180,000 workers protested at 280 locations across Germany. But union leaders did a rotten deal with management. They negotiated to support the “Future Plan 2030” in return for a longer term plant closure schedule.

Rank and file workers point out that the union’s “victory” is a mirage. By accepting “staggered model phase-outs” over the next decade, the union has allowed VW to slowly choke these factories out. They wanted to defuse the rage of the workers.

Revolutionary workers in the MLPD have said that without a strike nothing will change. They argue for wildcat strike actions to challenge the bosses and the corrupt union leaders.

In July, Audi management in Neckarsulm called the police to violently suppress and arrest MLPD members distributing a worker newspaper at the factory gates.

The MLPD argued that the union leadership have signed the death warrants of the car plants, delaying the executions to prevent an immediate workforce explosion. They call it a strategy to “let the factories bleed dry quietly” over a decade so that worker resistance is broken up bit by bit.

The German state and VW management are exploring repurposing facilities for arms production. Israel’s state-owned defense company, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which runs the Iron Dome air defense system, has stepped in to try take over a Volkswagen plant in Osnabrück.

The mainstream IG Metall union and the Volkswagen works council chairs have supported the takeover because it preserves 75% of the jobs but the MLPD fiercely attacked this rotten compromise.

The MLPD are right to say not a single car should be made until the plants are secure and that they should all remain car plants not part of the imperialist war machine.

The MLPD demanded that instead of converting the car plant over to weapons production, the factory should be transitioned into green infrastructure. A factory that can build tanks can build trams.

Wage agreements covering many of the plants run out at the end of December, meaning legal strikes can take place, meanwhile militant workers aligned with the MLPD are calling for immediate wildcat strikes.

The MLPD are right because union bureaucrats will use talks in November and December to try disarm potential strike actions in January. Workers need to build momentum now and not fall into a trap that’s being set by union bosses who work hand in hand with the Volkswagen bosses and the state.

Red Network workers in here Ireland stand 100% in solidarity with our fellow revolutionary workers in the MLPD. We are proud to work with them in ICOR and learn from the struggles of German workers as they fight back against the greedy bosses and sly union leaders.