Volkswagen’s restructuring of its Wolfsburg plant from 2027 to make way for EV-only production could result in a temporary four-day working week at the plant, works council chief Daniela Cavallo told workers on Tuesday.
Cavallo, a central figure in negotiations with management last year over cost cuts, said unions had agreed minimum capacity utilisation for the transition period, but urged workers to take extra shifts in the run-up to compensate for the likelihood of fewer working hours in years to come.
“We have to make provisions now so that we can draw on them later … From 2027 onwards, a temporary four-day week is not an unreasonable scenario,” Cavallo said.
Volkswagen’s deal struck with unions last December to cut costs in Germany included moving production of the combustion engine Golf from Wolfsburg to Mexico from 2027, prompting concern among some employees at the carmaker’s headquarters over the future of the plant.
Cavallo sought to assure workers on Tuesday that the plant’s future was in safer hands via plans to produce the electric Golf, as well as a successor to its T-Roc compact SUV, by the end of the decade, pointing to the steady decline in demand for the combustion engine version of the iconic VW car.
Golf production globally, most of which was concentrated in Wolfsburg, has declined from over a million in 2015 to just over 300,000 in 2024, a graph compiled by the works council and seen by Reuters showed, with just 250,000 cars forecast for this year.
“The trend is an unstoppable decline … the Golf must go to Mexico! Sooner or later. Otherwise, our plant will eventually find itself at the bottom of these statistics I just showed,” Cavallo said, according to comments published on the company intranet and seen by Reuters.
