Multiple Volkswagen factories in Germany have been idling lately with their workers on a strike. Negotiations scheduled for later today, December 9, should address some of the issues – but some of the employees are out for blood, it seems.
The current strikes involve around 100,000 people across nine industrial sites, the local trade unions report. Many of them are disgruntled with the size of the bonuses that Volkswagen executives awarded themselves in the wake of the crisis.
According to Daniela Cavallo, the leader of the local Workers’ Union, Porsche and Piech families owning the Volkswagen business in Europe are receiving around €1,000,000 every year in dividends alone. This has reportedly gone on for ten years, so both should be rich enough to afford sacrificing a bit of their surplus income in the workers’ favor.
However, the last time we heard from the VW management, it was still determined to axe the staff, shut down the factories and slash the wages across the entire industry while keeping their precious bonuses intact. We’ll see what changes today, if anything.