IAC Coordination Group in Germany: Fight against mass layoffs at Volkswagen
September 6, 2024: Dear colleagues, September 6, 2024 The Board of Management of Volkswagen wants to cut 30,000 jobs, close plants and is planning compulsory redundancies, a general attack by VW on the workforce, families and the VW regions. So far it has affected temporary workers and now the core workforce. The VW Group was a model of co-determination and class cooperation. The VW Board of Management is breaking agreements and openly violating this policy of class cooperation. The naked dictatorship of the monopolies is now clearly coming to surface at VW! It is not only the VW Group, but leading monopolies and the capitalist association BDI are announcing a tougher approach towards the employees and their trade union, our IG Metall.
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In fact, VW, like the entire German car industry, has fallen behind its international competitors. The reason for this is the intensified international competition between all the car monopolies. After seven months of the current year, domestic car production by the car companies was 15 percent below the 2019 figure. The companies want to shift the burden of the global economic crisis onto the employees. We reject subordination to the competitive struggle of the corporations and their profit logic; these are not management failures, they are systematic. This is why such plans, as at VW, will be put on the table at other car and supplier groups and not only there! ZF, Bosch and the sale of the Mercedes dealerships are already known. The steel companies have announced the destruction of thousands of jobs.
The protests of the VW workforce have become known throughout Germany: Turbulent works meeting in Wolfsburg and other locations and actions outside the gates. In Brussels/Belgium, where VW is threatening to close the plant, the colleagues have not even started to work after the company vacation and are on strike.
It is not just an attack on the VW workforce, but on all car workers: whoever attacks one of us - attacks all of us! A rough block needs a rough wedge - a joint struggle across company and national borders, together with the struggling colleagues in the steel sector.
The only effective means is an indefinite, group-wide independent strike at all VW locations: fight for every job and apprentice position, for the 30-hour week with full wage compensation as a group agreement and a full legal right to strike in all matters! Strengthen IG Metall as a fighting organization!
Discuss this with colleagues, consider, plan and organize solidarity actions - today you - tomorrow we! Join a supporting group of the International Automotive Workers' Coordination!
Come to the international demonstration in Brussels on September 16 on the occasion of the planned closure of Audi Brussels.
Come to the rally and family celebration in Bochum on October 5 to mark 20 years of strikes at Opel/Bochum. 20 years ago, the Opel employees in Bochum set standards with their seven-day independent strike: without compromise, the colleagues occupied the plant and blocked the gates, receiving the broad solidarity of countless employees and the population in the Ruhr area. With their strike, the Opel employees inflicted a heavy defeat on General Motors, the largest automotive group in the world at the time, and prevented the closure of the Bochum plant for ten years. It is not for nothing that the “Bochum way” is called: one for all - all for one! Unity is strength!
With solidarity greetings
German Coordination Group of the International Automotive Workers' Coordination
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