Strikes underway at Volkswagen plants across Germany as wage conflict escalates

Volkswagen workers across Germany stopped work on Monday as the conflict between the German automotive giant and its employees over changes to labor agreements and potential factory closures escalated.

Nine of Volkswagen’s car and component factories in Germany were affected by the so-called warning strikes, with work either being halted temporarily for demonstrations or shifts being cut short by workers.

Photos on Monday showed workers carrying banners with messages that read “strike ready,” and “warning strikes — our right,” according to a CNBC translation.

“If necessary, this will be the harshest wage dispute ever seen at Volkswagen,” Thorsten Gröger, chief negotiator of key union IG Metall, warned in a statement on Sunday. How long and intense the conflict will be is down to the businesses’ negotiations, he said.

“What follows now is the conflict that Volkswagen summoned — we did not want it, but we will lead it as engaged as needed,” he added.

Three rounds of negotiations have taken place between Volkswagen, the union and company’s works council so far without success. Further talks are set to take place later this month.

A spokesperson from Volkswagen on Sunday said that the company “respects the right of workers to participate in a warning strike.” The company continues to rely on constructive dialogue to find a “sustainable and mutually supported solution,” Volkswagen added in comments translated by CNBC.

It comes after Volkswagen in September scrapped a slew of labor agreements and said it was ending its employment protection agreement, which has been in place for its German workforce since 1994. The carmaker at the time also flagged that it may need to close factories in Germany for the first time in its history.

In October, the company’s works council said that Volkswagen management was also considering widespread pay cuts and layoffs.

Workers have so far been prevented from taking strike action under a peace obligation, which ended on Dec. 1. The last major strikes at Volkswagen took place in 2018, with around 50,000 workers participating, while smaller warning strikes of several thousand employees took place in 2021.