Ever since works council leader Daniela Cavallo and IG Metall union district manager Thorsten Gröger announced their “Christmas miracle,” supposedly preserving jobs and incomes, it has become clearer day by day that they have systematically been leading the Volkswagen workforce down the garden path. Nothing is protected in the so-called “Future Contract” that IG Metall and VW have agreed—except for an endless slide downwards, without any red lines.

The one thing that is very clear is that Cavallo and Gröger have agreed to the loss of 35,000 jobs and a reduction in real incomes of up to 20 percent. In doing so they have broken all records. Never before have supposed worker representatives signed off on the destruction of so many jobs with a single stroke of the pen. This didn’t even happen at the height of the steel crisis in the 1980s.

But while the job cuts have begun, the so-called “stop lines”—no plant closures; no mass layoffs (compulsory redundancies); no cuts in monthly wages—that the IG Metall and works council supposedly agreed are proving to be pure fantasy.

In reality, no plant is safe. Smaller plants, such as Osnabrück and Dresden, are even at acute risk. But the future of the large plants in Zwickau, Emden and Kassel is also up in the air.

The Kassel works council chairman Carsten Büchling recently reported in his podcast that many details were still to be worked out. Although there was an agreement not to impose compulsory redundancies, he added, “product commitments are also needed, both in vehicle construction and in components. That is why further talks and central negotiations are taking place at the moment. We are working under great pressure on a [production] location paper.”

In other words, there is no agreement at all on the preservation of the various production locations. This question is still being worked out behind the scenes. The constant stream of new reports about which vehicle model and which sub model will be produced in which plant in the future is reminiscent of a “shell game” designed to confuse everyone. This also applies to Wednesday’s factory meeting. No matter what is promised, everything will be changed the next day.

There is no ban on compulsory redundancies either, which do not apply to temporary workers. At the Kassel plant, the contracts of a third of the well over 1,000 temporary workers will not be renewed, and the contracts of the remaining 730 will expire at the end of July. In addition, there are thousands of employees from supplier and service companies who depend on Volkswagen.

Even permanent VW workers cannot count on any job guarantees. IG Metall has never lacked imagination when it comes to using severance pay, contract companies and other devices to force workers out of the factory. The Opel plant in Bochum and numerous steelworks have been closed down in this way.

VW is already targeting employees with health problems, apparently with the consent of the works council. In Wolfsburg, operational plant logistics, with around 1,000 employees, are being outsourced to the private service provider DC World. There, staff are mainly employed through the Work2Work project, which previously offered further employment to employees with reduced performance and health issues. They now face unemployment or significantly lower pay with the new service provider.

The WSWS has received reports from workers in Zwickau that older workers with physical disabilities are now being forced back on the assembly line. Existing teams are being “dissolved overnight.”

The claim that the IG Metall has prevented a “cut in monthly salaries” is completely absurd. In reality, with the agreement of the union, salaries will be frozen for years as inflation rises and allowances and bonuses will be cut (in some cases they will even have to be paid back), resulting in a double-digit reduction in real incomes.

If necessary, the company can reduce weekly working to as little as 28 hours. Full wage compensation (financed by the withheld wage increase) is only paid for the first two hours. For the third and fourth hours, only 30 percent is paid, and for the following hours, only 20 percent.

The most important part of the “Future Contract” has been kept secret by the IG Metall and works council to this day. It contains a “review clause“ stating that “in the event of significant changes in the basic assumptions or the economic framework conditions,” the company could convene a “review meeting.” Here, “The parties to the collective agreement will discuss the necessary measures, including socio-political instruments.”

This means that the company can demand further job cuts and wage reductions at any time if it does not achieve the targeted profit margins. According to a report in business magazine WirtschaftsWoche, each individual site must achieve predefined targets, on which the allocation of further production volumes then depend.

In this way, the works council and management are constantly collaborating to squeeze ever more savings from the workforce. The Wolfsburger Nachrichten put it aptly: “It’s an open secret: savings at VW are becoming a kind of eternal burden. In other words, what has been achieved is by no means enough to solve the problems once and for all. For generations of current and future employees, the belt will therefore be tightened steadily.”

This cannot and must not be accepted. Workers who want to fight this must build independent rank-and-file action committees to take the defence of jobs and incomes into their own hands.

They cannot rely on IG Metall and its works council representatives. They stand on the side of management. They look at the interests of the company from the same vantage point as the shareholders and management. The well-paid works council officials are willing to make any concession to ensure that “their” company retains the upper hand in the global struggle for lower costs and higher profits.

The transnational auto companies are engaged in a Darwinian struggle for survival, which is intensifying with the coming to power of Donald Trump in the US. The escalating trade war, which threatens millions of livelihoods worldwide, is increasingly being waged with military means.

Germany, too, is rearming at a pace not seen since Hitler while it supports the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East with billions of euros. This pro-war policy requires a frontal assault on the social rights of the working class. Everything workers have fought for over decades in terms of wages, social provisions and democratic rights will be under attack.

The cutbacks at Volkswagen are part of this. Millions of jobs, the future of entire regions, pensions, health care, social services and education are at stake. And not only in Germany, but all over the world.

This capitalist madness must be countered by the international unity of the working class, which stands in irreconcilable opposition to the interests of capital. The VW Action Committee advocates the following demands:

• Hold a vote on the “future contract”! The IG Metall union and the works council have no mandate to force this oppressive contract onto VW workers. The contract must be put to a vote of the entire workforce!
• Not one cent for dividends! The right to a job and a decent wage takes precedence over the profit interests of investors. The billions that have been handed over to the owners, above all the Porsche-Piëch family and the sheikhs of Qatar, must instead be invested in the production of good and affordable cars.
• Prepare an unlimited general strike! Action committees made up of trusted workers committed to fight for the interests of the entire workforce must be formed at all locations.
• For the international cooperation and unity of auto workers! Delegations of militant workers from the action committees, elected at factory meetings, must make contact with the corporation’s employees worldwide, in Europe, the USA, South America, Asia and Africa.

Contact the action committee to get active now. Send a message via WhatsApp to +491633378340 and register using this form.