My name is Lars Hirsekorn,
I have been working since 1994 at Volkswagen in Braunschweig,
which is a relatively small plant with 8200 people.
We don't build cars, but only components, primarily axles.
And for a few years now also batteries
for electric vehicles.
In November, December
the verbal attack from management was relatively strong,
it was said that Volkswagen had to make savings now.
The Board of Management or the shareholders,
probably Piech and Porsche,
absolutely wanted plants to be closed,
because the profit margin is too low. And indeed
they are planning relatively large investments,
to make big changes in the way cars are produced
and want more money for that.
Volkswagen already has 145 billion euros
provisions for such things,
but they wanted and want more.
At the same time at Volkswagen itself
thy want to change the ratio between how much we produce ourselves
and how much we buy from other companies or
which production is relocated,
- that's what they want to change and in principle
shut down plants in Germany.
It's not about complete closure, but about a significant reduction
Before 2019 management had
completely different estimations.
They thought they were about to conquer the world and
have actually built up capacity for 12 million vehicles a year.
They said: So, we've cracked the 10 million mark.
And they thought that it would go on like this
and planned for 12 million vehicles a year.
And now the car production is stuck at 9.5 million.
In other words, there are theoretical
overcapacities of 2.5 million.
That's where they want to save money
and increase the profit margin.
At Volkswagen,
but only at Volkswagen,
there was relatively large resistance.
We once went on a two-hour warning strike
and once on four hours warning strike.
Now everyone at Verdi union will laugh and say: What is this?
We don't start strikes under eight hours!
To put this in context.
I can't remember,
and I don't think it ever happened,
that there was such a strike at Volkswagen, that the union's strike fund was touched.
So that hasn't happened yet.
So far it's always been warning strikes and and IG Metall is not so quick to
pay out strike money.
This means that these warning strikes
were completely at the expense of the and colleagues' wages.
- This is not too bad, but elsewhere the unions would also pay strike money.
Especially when union coffers are so full.
So that was in the middle of December 2024
and then
the collective bargaining commission agreed to this deal.
They had themselves locked up in a hotel in Hanover for a week,
negotiated for a week and then signed.
And they did so without asking the members again.
It doesn't have to be an official ballot, because there was no ballot.
But to at least hold another vote:
Should we accept this or not?
Should we do it like this or not?
This didn't happen at all and now there's an agreement,
where the workers are supposed to tighten their belts.
The workforce works longer hours, the workforce foregoes money
and at the same time
we have not gained much.
Let's put it this way: we have gained time,
but in my opinion we don't make the best use of this time.
Time in the sense that there won't be any redundancies until 2030.
Until then, nobody will be dismissed.
Nevertheless, the workforce is to be reduced by 35,000 people.
In Germany alone.
That means, for example, if Volkswagen plant is sold,
in this case
nobody has been officially been dismissed and everything is fine
according to the collective agreement, and that is quite a catastrophe.
The agreement is bad in two respects. One is that
the workforce earns less and works more in order to achieve the
declared goal of the company - the increase of the profit rate to 6%.
The shareholders, at the same time,
are not ready,
to give up money.
And that is already a situation where you have to say
"Dear trade union, why did you sign this?"
Why did you see yourself forced to do this,
to sign something like that?
Volkswagen belongs in principle to
three large shareholder groups
the State of Lower Saxony,
the Emirate of Qatar and the Piech and Porsche families -
with Porsche SE as
an organisational unit, if you like.
The state of Lower Saxony was allegedly prepared
to forego money,
to finance this restructuring.
The Emirate of Qatar
was also allegedly be prepared
to do without money for some years, to finance the restructuring.
The Piech and Porsche families in Salzburg? - Not a chance.
They rather see plant closure
than to give up even one euro.
Now it's clear.
Wolfgang Porsche wants to to build another tunnel
through the mountain in Salzburg, for several million euros.
He really needs the money.
But why does the union have so much understanding for these families,
that is honestly unclear to me.
Workers have tightened their belt,
For a relatively small concession, namely five years
of no redundancies, but at the same time...
to make that clear again:
These 35,000 people, they're not mentioned in the agreement.
It doesn't say that, "we want to cut 35,000 people"
but the jobs are not safe either.
The individual Volkswagen plants are allowed to develop new products.
For example, the plant in Brunswick can apply for investment money
to produce new brake pads or steering systems.
And then we can apply to produce this for the wider Volkswagen corporation.
As location Brunswick.
Let's assume that Wolfsburg wants to build a new car and needs a new steering system.
Then we get the money to develop it
and then we can apply with other competitors
- we still have to be the economically most viable,
so that we get the contract.
And even if we get all possible contracts for all
the products that we are allowed to develop,
in 2030 we would
only have work in our plant
for 4000 people
out of 8000 at the moment.
There won't be more work.
This means that either so many
workers leave with severance payments or into partial retirement,
or in 2030/31 we really will be
in a situation where we actually
have a surplus of personnel, and an enormous one at that.
At the same time, with the new agreement we have also increased working hours.
Yes, these are factors,
they are already pretty tough.
I say the individual VW worker can still live quite well
on their wages, no question about it.
But that something like this is signed,
without asking the staff again, the members,
is also an expression of something. We always hear that
people no longer feel included in society
and they don't feel involved and they can't speak up
or that their lives are being decided, without them having any influence on it.
Then the union has to ask itself: What is it doing?
What is a trade union doing that is supposed to represent the people
and that should be a progressive element in this society?
What is the trade union doing?
And that's already....
In its entirety, this wage agreement the way it went,
is quite a disaster.
And the mood amongst workers
or the reports from the individual workplaces reflect exactly that.
For example, threats of violence against representatives
of IG Metall.
There are apparently several works councils in many plants,
who do not dare to go on the shop floor
who no longer go alone to meet the workforce.
Who are happy,
that they can park
on the managers' car park and do not habe to use the employee car park.
And yes, that's the a mood, that is simply there for the time being,
that the union has clearly fucked up.
A lot of support has been wasted, and to make up for it
is very, very difficult.
I think the whole thing is an attack
on the entire automotive industry.
This is not a question of Volkswagen alone.
I think these wage negotiations, this procedure were quite coordinated
with the rest of the management of the automotive industry, with the owners.
Within this whole situation
in the automotive industry I would name three factors.
One is, I think, similar to Volkswagen
the car industry planned for larger capacities
or of course were forced to do so.
If Volkswagen said, we are building capacity
for 12 million vehicles, then the supplier industry
is more or less forced to follow Volkswagen and
built up these capacities.
This means that Bosch, for example
has built relatively large plants,
to produce electric motors for Volkswagen.
This means that the works councils in these factories
may have worked to ensure
that parts for combustion engines, were not built in the future.
And they were in favour of changes in order
that they can build electric motors.
But now these motors are not needed at all,
because a) far fewer cars are being built than expected
and b) also far fewer electric cars are built than
Volkswagen management predicted.
This means that these factories are now also being called into question.
It's not just Bosch, it's also other suppliers,
who are now closing plants.
Or lay off workers.
The other thing is that a whole series of plants are being relocated.
Yes, the profit margin is also not high enough either.
It has nothing or relatively little to do
with the wages in Germany.
This actually has something to do with industrial costs as a whole.
and that other countries offer,
a trade union-free area,
or a union-poor space
with very favourable conditions.
Many companies now, for example,
close down here and move their production to Hungary.
That's easy,
because Hungary actually offers cheap electricity for industries.
Fuck the environment, coal is still being burnt,
they use nuclear power and everything
and the state simply has relatively little interest in
taxing electricity companies properly, to develop other forms of energy as well,
That means that electricity is actually cheap
and all the other conditions are also right.
The trade unions don't have much say in Hungary.
Orban does what the industry wants and the people work hard.
The only problem they have now
is that there are not enough people left.
The more factories
go to Hungary, the more they have to
get labour from somewhere.
But that reservoir simply no longer exist.
And the third factor is that now
a few new companies have entered the market.
I think with Tesla is almost done,
because the AfD people don't drive electric cars.
And anyone who is still halfway in their right mind,
and have a little sense of honour, will no longer buy a Tesla
after the number that Elon is pulling.
But the Chinese competition
and the cars that are now coming,
naturally restricts the market. You won't get any more
infinite markets
but you rather lose market shares.
And in that sense it is already an attack
on the living conditions of all people in Germany,
what they are doing,
not just on car workers, but ultimately on everyone.
I believe these shareholders,
who think
their profit margin has become too small,
although they actually
have increased insanely much.
If you look at the results of the 40 DAX companies
in the last five years, then profits are simply going up.
It just goes steeply upwards.
The share profits are exorbitant, but it's also excessive greed.
Marx, I think,
once said: "Give the companies
so many per cent profit margin and there will be no crime in the world,
that they would not be prepared to commit."
And that's just the way it is!
So it's excessive greed and at the same time
a relatively helpless labour movement.
This excessive greed is now being translated into:
"We will now simply cut everyone's wages by 10 per cent."
With a car workers' wage you might cope with that.
Maybe, but of course it's catching on in society.
So it's not a question of,
"Ah, the high earners
at VW now earn 10% less", but it results
in a down-ward spiral within the rest of society,
with this inflation, that is there at the moment.
Or with the high level of prices that remains.
So perhaps now from month to month, from year to year
inflation is no longer particularly high, but prices have risen to
a higher level.
For example, the litre orange juice from 1 to 2 euros,
the cheap one in the plastic bottle,
has simply increased by 100 %.
And of course these are things that people notice
and the effects are relatively catastrophic.
And as I said, I think this is a whole approach of the entire industry.
The IG Metall leadership
but also down to the the smallest union official, so also
the works councils in the factories are
relatively unprepared and relatively helpless
when it comes to this attack by capital.
So there's not much happening,
in terms of resistance,
or self-defense.
You have to see it that way.
So the day of union action on the 15th of March
by the IG Metall for example, which
is also such a sign:
The IG Metall is organising a day of action
and they haven't managed to do it with the entire union federation DGB.
There were a few districts,
where the IG Chemie helped mobilise.
But otherwise
IG Metall has done this for itself on its own,
which is very poor in the end.
You would have to make it bigger, but another problem was
the union core demand, that stuck in peoples' heads:
The state must supply the industry with cheap electricity so that
the basic conditions here in Germany become more favourable again.
I think only the 10th out of 11 demands said that
that the rich should also be taxed more.
All the top places of demands, those which remain in people's heads
and in the press at the end, they were a pure whinge:
We have to make Germany more economically viable again.
Let me say this,
in the mid 1990s
the big industrial companies.
started an attack.
Not just at Volkswagen, but in all automotive companies,
and also elsewhere,
the companies attacked
and said
"People, you either
vote in favour of an extension
of working hours to include the weekend,
or we go to the east."
IG Metall has not managed to become internationalist
and to sit down with the trade unions in Eastern Europe
and to formulate common standards. Instead the union said:
"Okay, weekend work is fine, here is a gift."
That means in the Volkswagen plants even now, after this wage agreement
in Wolfsburg, we run extra shifts on Saturday after Saturday.
The plant and machinery are already set up for six days
running time more or less
That's how they are installed and calculated.
At the start of the 2000s
the companies came again and said:
"Wow, here, dear union, either we outsource the logistics
and the kitchen and this and that,
or we go to the east."
The union has again failed
to become internationalist, but has continued to
improve their individual production location.
They said: "Okay, we'll outsource the kitchen,
we'll outsource the logistics, etc.
but in return, the rest of the work stays here."
Yes, and now
they are faced with a disjointed workforce and are once again just playing location politics.
There is begging and moaning, the location must become cheaper,
instead of adopting a really internationalist approach.
Of course we have
a European works council, we have a global corporation with a global works council.
But internationalist politics in the sense of
of trade union activity does not really exist.
That is the situation at the moment.
As a result we are facing
this helplessness - I will call it that.
In fact
a few people from the various sites
got together and said: "We want to push some other ideas
within the factories, into the trade unions
and do something about it."
According to the motto: a) we need
more co-determination,
whatever that should look like, about what is built in the factories.
We are of the opinion that if we ruled the factories
in inverted commas
we could do better for the society.
We then started to publish a newspaper,
so first issue for the day of action on the 15th of March.
This is already the second issue for the 1st of May,
where we say that we want
a transport industry with a future.
Fewer cars are being built
and the factories also need fewer people.
And now it can't be our demand to say:
"Oh dear, we need fewer people in car production,
so we have to produce more cars."
That's what parts of IG Metall are actually demanding,
where I think, what the hell does my union come up with?
More cars and even more cars?
So what should the world cope with?
That's why we got together with a few people
and we thought we needed something different, other ideas.
Public transport is certainly part of it.
So we could build buses, we could build trams.
There are many cities that could do with trams,
that could make good use of them, to provide reasonable public transport
to generate reasonable public transport.
But at the same time, of course the political mood
or the mood
among the ruling class is unfortunately not like that in this country.
They don't want to build trams but at the moment,
in 2025, in all cities
they discuss how public transport
can be reduced, because there is simply no money
because the money is being spent on tanks and missiles.
And yes, there too,
from the wage settlement at Volkswagen
the question arises:
"What do we do with this excess capacities in inverted commas?"
Of course, we could also reduce working hours instead of expanding them,
but this would be at the expense of the return on investment,
which nobody seems to want.
I don't know.
I would want to, somehow,
but many others don't.
And there are individual car plants and actually not only individual plants,
where there are overcapacities
in inverted commas, under these conditions.
Many plants could be run in three shifts,
but they only do two shifts at the moment, which is not a bad thing.
Night shifts are extremely unhealthy,
they costs you a few years of your life, if you do it for a long time.
So that's actually not so bad.
But the plants could of course be be run in three shifts.
And now
capital comes round the corner and politics, too.
And unfortunately also part of the trade union and they say: "We can also build tanks.
It's great, the armaments industry is going well."
Here my lack of understanding
is almost limitless, so to speak.
What can I say?
I would really want to compare it
with World War I,
lessons have been learnt,
i.e. the approval of the SPD social democrats to the war credits.
It was simply an immense mistake.
Never mind, even if Germany
had won the war, which worker
would have won anything in this war?
Not even the French, not even the English
those who officially won the war.
Even today in all our villages stand the monuments
with the names of the fallen, and we gain nothing from this war.
We need a policy of diplomacy!
It is a central basic value
of the trade unions,
that they are against rearmament,
even if these weapons should not be used,
which is totally unlikely.
I think the weapons will eventually be used
and we are heading for the next big war.
But nevertheless,
weapon production is something completely nonsensical.
Society has nothing to gain from it!
We have no use for it in everyday life.
It would make more sense to build buses and trains
where we might not stop climate change,
but at least take some speed out from this climate change
and have something at the same time,
that really benefits us all.
In factory, I think,
there is a relatively
strong current,
which definitely says: "We do not want no further militarisation."
That's right, we don't want war.
But they hardly get a chance to speak,
so very, very little.
There are a few that are loud,
who say: "We don't want to, no way."
But most of them tend to remain silent.
And then at the same time
people on the lower union level say:
"I have no opinion on this,
I haven't even thought about it."
Something like that.
Yes, really, it is
helplessness somehow
and also ignorance and not dealing with the role.
What does trade union have to do with militarisation?
Why should the trade union raise its voice?
The social mandate of the trade union has been
reduced so far that even many works councils do not understand at all
why now would be the time for the trade union to comment on this.
At the same time, there is a pro-military wing within
the IG Metall, also within the executive board.
The Executive Board is very divided on this, I think.
There is a wing within IG Metall,
that wants to push ahead with the defence industry,
who clearly demands: "Dear Federal Government,
the companies need assurances. We want to build so and so many
tanks per year in the next 20 years, so that the capacities
are really built up and something gets produced here."
At the same time they demand, you have to imagine that too,
to ease the export restrictions on weapons
because the restrictions are also bad
for the companies that only manufacture individual parts.
So let's assume you manufacture military scopes
and now you want, of course, to sell it to
the USA, Great Britain or to French defence manufacturers.
They would not be able to install the scope in their weapon systems
and sell them all over the world,
because of the German arms export restrictions.
This means that part of IG Metall is demanding to get rid of the export restrictions,
which are already very limited and very weak.
We have never exported so many weapons as we do now.
And that, too, is to be be cancelled so that
the French defence industry and the German defence industry
can enter into co-operations and works better together.
And the people in IG Metall
who are still against the defence industry,
are unfortunately often very quiet.
I don't know if they are afraid of
being labelled as Putin friends or whatever.
I suppose so, but we're too quiet.
Definitely.
There are only a few people who stand up and speak loudly and openly
and say: "No, we won't do it, We can't do that."
So a clear example: I demand,
I expect,
from the members of the supervisory board of my union at Volkswagen,
that they oppose the sale of Volkswagen
Osnabrück to the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall.
That would be a very clear point.
Or that no military production
will take place
at this plant in Osnabruck, regardless of whether it is sold or not.
It would be a clear stance.
And that's what I actually expect, that the members of the Supervisory Board
say quite clearly: "No, we want vehicles to be built here for
for public transport.
And as a trade union, we are also calling for an expansion of public transport
and that these vehicles be built here."
That would be progressive
and what we try to do with the newspaper is to promote these ideas
and to spread the mood within the workforce.