Dusseldorf Just over a year ago, not a week went by in which Bernd Osterloh didn’t make headlines in connection with Volkswagen. A new dispute with CEO Herbert Diess, a sluggish start to the Golf, software problems with the new electric models – these were the standard topics of the former Volkswagen works council chairman.
But a year ago, the 65-year-old switched sides and is now on the side of the company as HR director of the Traton truck division – the “dark” side, as the VW works council in Wolfsburg still calls it today. For a year, Osterloh deliberately held back and was hardly represented in public. Now this reluctance is over, Osterloh is giving interviews again like in the Volkswagen days.
However, on a different topic. He does not want to comment on the current situation in the VW group. “I’m out there,” he explains the silence in an interview with the Handelsblatt. His successor Daniela Cavallo does not call him, she does not need his advice. In Wolfsburg he is only at home privately, his desk is now in the Traton headquarters in Munich.
Bernd Osterloh now presents himself as someone for whom his entire life revolves around trucks. To some extent, he has also become a lobbyist for the trucking industry. For example, when he stays in Berlin for several days at a time and wrestles with politicians and associations to expand the charging network for electric trucks. “In the end, it’s also about jobs,” says Osterloh. After all, taking care of it is his job as head of human resources at the Volkswagen subsidiary Traton.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Difficult topics in Osterloh’s first year
The first year in Munich was anything but easy for the former VW works council chairman. That was less due to him than to the difficult issues that dominated the truck holding company from the Volkswagen Group for a long time. The Swedish truck manufacturer Scania and MAN from Munich form the essential core of the group. In addition, there is the Brazilian subsidiary, which sells its trucks under the Volkswagen brand in South America, and, since last year, the US manufacturer Navistar.
The cooperation between Scania and MAN did not really work. The distrust between both sides is great: Scania has been the profit king in the entire truck industry for years. In contrast, MAN has racked up billions in losses over the ten years it has been part of the Volkswagen Group. That is why the Bavarian truck manufacturer was prescribed a strict austerity program last year: 3,500 jobs will be cut in Germany alone.
The constant coming and going in the Traton management team was of little help. Bernd Osterloh belongs to the group of managers who were newly employed at the truck holding company last year. At the head of the division is now Christian Levin, who has retained his top position at Scania despite being promoted to Traton CEO. Which of course initially caused concern at MAN in Munich that it would now be placed entirely under the care of its Swedish sister company.
Bernd Osterloh does not see the personnel decisions at the top of Traton as a major problem. “Everyone is aware that something has to happen,” emphasizes the HR director. In the entire group, cooperation among each other must be promoted in order to create synergies on a much larger scale than before. “We still have huge opportunities there,” adds Osterloh. The focus is on the entire group, not the individual brands.
Osterloh believes that because of his past as chairman of the group’s works council, he can play a mediating role in the position of Traton’s HR manager – especially when it comes to contentious issues. “It helps that you know each other,” he says in relation to his negotiating partners in the Traton works council and at IG Metall. Site security contracts for individual plants were concluded so quickly. Apprenticeship training at MAN is also progressing.
The Ukraine war turned the annual plans into waste
In January and February it actually looked like the entire Traton Group would be a good year away. “MAN has also got off to a good start, there is a huge order backlog,” explains Osterloh. But then came the war in Ukraine, and all of the annual plans suddenly became waste. As in a number of VW Group car factories, the cable harnesses from the Ukraine were missing, especially in German MAN factories. Therefore, production at MAN was suspended for weeks.
Trucks are now actually being produced in Munich and elsewhere because parts deliveries from the Ukraine have resumed. This means that Bernd Osterloh is looking a little more optimistically to the rest of the year. Some of the lost production could perhaps be made up again.
>>Read here: Why deliveries from the Ukraine have returned to normal for the entire Volkswagen Group
In his new role as Traton board member, Osterloh wants to ensure that the electric drive in trucks progresses faster than expected. For him there is no doubt that the battery drive will also prevail in large, heavy trucks on long-distance routes. “Drivers must take their statutory rest breaks. This time can be used to charge the battery,” says Osterloh with conviction. He sees only a few possible uses for the combination of fuel cells and hydrogen.
Local buses will definitely be electric. In 2024, MAN also wants to send its first large electric long-distance truck on the road. Scania has similar plans. According to Osterloh, a range of around 400 kilometers is initially realistic. With later battery generations, up to 1000 kilometers would be possible. The only thing missing is the charging network, with which hundreds of thousands of trucks can be charged regularly. Osterloh now also wants to turn its attention to the development of this charging infrastructure.
The Traton HR director will also test the electric prototypes in order to get an idea of the driving characteristics of the new truck generation. The fact that he does not have a truck driver’s license has apparently not proven to be a disadvantage so far. Osterloh: “It’s not a problem here on the test site.”
More: VW subsidiary MAN relies on purely electric trucks for long-distance journeys.