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Volkswagen: Herbert Diess gets support from the works council

2021-11-25T07:34:51.065Z


A surprising turnaround in Wolfsburg: some works councils publicly oppose chairwoman Daniela Cavallo and behind the controversial CEO Herbert Diess. One does not want to support the "reputation-damaging wrong path" of the current works council, it says in a letter to the VW main shareholders.


Enlarge image

I

can be happy:

According to the founders of the "We for you" list, the support for VW boss

Herbert Diess is

high among many employees

Photo: MATTHIAS RIETSCHEL / REUTERS

In the otherwise unified works council of Volkswagen, there are signs of a possible conflict over the course of the new chairman

Daniela Cavallo

(46).

A few months before the next elections for the workforce representation in spring 2022, a group wants to compete against the leading parliamentary group of IG Metall.

The founders of the "We for You" list also turned to the main VW shareholders of the Porsche and Piëch families as well as Lower Saxony's Prime Minister

Stephan Weil

(SPD; 62)

on Wednesday

.

In a letter they expressed sharp criticism of the attitude of the works council management.

There were also - rather unusual - words of praise for the equally controversial CEO Herbert Diess (63).

In the letter from the German Press Agency (DPA), works councils

Norbert Lem

and

Michael Maginski attacked

the head of the employee

bank

around Cavallo. They wanted to make the big owners "on the occasion" aware that they could no longer support the "wrongdoing of the current works council, which is damaging to the company's reputation and influencing the share price". Accordingly, the impression is given that the majority of the colleagues are no longer behind Diess - that is "largely negatively constructed".

Lem told the DPA that certain circles obviously wanted to see the VW boss replaced as soon as possible.

"But the support for Diess is also high among many employees, and many think that he is on the right track."

The criticism of him is presented too broadly.

Serious allegations against ex-works council boss Osterloh

Diess is again under fire from the works council management since he called for extensive job cuts in September.

Cavallo was particularly annoyed that the CEO had previously - bypassed the employee representatives - solicited savings proposals from other managers.

At a works meeting that Diess initially did not want to attend, she attacked him in front of tens of thousands of employees. SPD head of government Weil, who represents the capital side on the supervisory board for the state of Lower Saxony, but tends to vote with the employees, indicated his dissatisfaction. At Volkswagen there is a great "uncertainty that is spreading everywhere".

According to the "We for You" founders, even under Cavallo's predecessor

Bernd Osterloh

(65), the works council did not always advocate the concerns of the VW parent plant as clearly as he publicly presented. In the dispute over an electric model for the headquarters, it was not only the management that was to blame for the fact that the ID series, for example, was initially located in Zwickau, Saxony. The decision against an e-car for Wolfsburg was ultimately "made by the works council," claim Lem and Maginski.

From the currently incumbent employee representation it was said that this accusation could not be upheld.

At the time, it was primarily about the question of whether VW could even launch its first e-vehicles in the volume segment in Germany.

Zwickau was a compromise that the works council had clearly advocated.

Lem excluded from works council election

The central electrical project Trinity is scheduled to start in Wolfsburg in 2026 - probably in a new factory.

In her speech at the last works meeting, Cavallo emphasized: "We had agreed on an electric model for Wolfsburg, but then the electric models should be bundled at one location, namely in Bratislava. In order to keep the jobs in Germany, we as the works council pushed through that production will be concentrated in Zwickau. "

New works councils will be elected at VW in spring.

IG Metall traditionally dominates; it currently has 66 of the 75 elected representatives.

There are also two smaller groups and one individual candidate.

The degree of organization of the union in the company is very high.

In addition, she sits at key points in the VW supervisory board.

After an earlier power struggle with the works council last year, Diess declared that it wanted to break up "encrusted structures" at VW.

He is firmly convinced "that the transformation will succeed. Despite Volkswagen's strong corporate culture."

After Cavallo took office last May, the tone relaxed a little - until it escalated again in September.

The IG Metall faction in the works council excluded three people in preparation for the elections.

Lem is one of them.

The reason given was that he had not commented on the new nomination.

Group spokesman

Jürgen Hildebrandt

saw this as a breach of duty: "The opportunity to explain yourself to your colleagues was not taken by all three. Without this honesty and openness there is no basis for further cooperation."

mg / dpa-afx

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-11-25

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