Kickoff at the Main Plant — VW's Employee Meeting Gets Underway

A series of town hall meetings has begun at Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg amid the automaker’s crisis. The executive board, led by CEO Oliver Blume, is expected to provide the workforce with answers regarding the announced cost-cutting measures. Employees recently criticized what they view as disastrous communication and only superficial information from top management. Tens of thousands of jobs and four plants are reportedly at risk.

CEO Blume described the company internally as “oversized” ahead of the meetings. “That often makes us too slow and too complicated,” he said in an interview. He had announced that he was working on a new “Vision 2030” and intended to tighten cost-cutting measures. Since then, there have been fears about the future at some German locations and, across the VW Group as a whole, about up to 50,000 additional jobs. 

With regard to possible plant closures in Emden, Zwickau, Hanover, and Neckarsulm, Blume spoke of a last resort that he would prefer to avoid. However, there is currently no “competitive capacity utilization” for these four plants through the 2030s. Following the meeting in Wolfsburg, eight additional works meetings are planned in the coming days in Braunschweig, Emden, Zwickau, Chemnitz, Dresden, Kassel-Baunatal, Salzgitter, and Hanover.