Wolfsburg Works council boss and supervisory board member Daniela Cavallo continues to distance herself from VW CEO Herbert Diess and has attacked the manager sharply. At a works meeting at the Wolfsburg headquarters on Thursday, according to the speech manuscript, she accused him of playing with the workforce’s fears of new job cuts and a lack of concept in the fight against the chip crisis.
Cavallo called speculations about the deletion of tens of thousands of jobs at the Volkswagen core brand, which Diess had fueled in the past few weeks, “substantive nonsense”. If the chairman of the board nevertheless publicly fires up the topic again and again, it is “pretty sad”, she criticized. “There isn’t one person too many on board here. You cannot negotiate an additional position with us! “
Everyone at VW knows that the company will have to be fundamentally rebuilt in the course of the transformation of the automotive industry. But there are already numerous accompanying programs for this – and the employment guarantee until 2029 is basically in place. “The only thing our employees have heard from you over the past few weeks has been frivolous speculations about job losses,” said Cavallo.
This is obviously not clear what that does with the motivation of the colleagues: “With the stroke of a pen, as if it were nothing, just put a number of 30,000 in the room. And it takes almost 48 hours to finally say something about it – and then to say: Oh, everything wasn’t meant that way! “That also unsettles the employees – many of whom have been on short-time work since the beginning of the Corona crisis. People are “afraid for their work, their families, their existence.”
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While Diess deals with PR campaigns or poses with Tesla boss Elon Musk as a major competitor, the management of supply bottlenecks in-house also leaves much to be desired, Cavallo grumbled: “What we see in semiconductors is one Indictment. (…) You regularly provide us with nice photos of your excursions, but unfortunately still not with semiconductors. “
It is also not true when it is suggested that VW is less productive in Wolfsburg compared to Tesla – “a lot more vehicles” are built per capita at the main plant. “The truth is: it is not the factory or the employees that are inefficient,” says Cavallo. “We simply lack the parts with which we can build our cars.”
Diess: “The next Golf must not come from China”
VW boss Diess defended his strategy in front of the employees. He wants to make the headquarters in Wolfsburg a central engine for the restructuring of the group. In front of tens of thousands of listeners at the works meeting on Thursday, he reaffirmed the goals for the electrically and autonomously driving model Trinity, which is expected to start in 2026.
“Wolfsburg in particular is important for the group and has to be the spearhead,” said Diess according to his speech. However, he also pointed out that the competition must be closely monitored: “The next Golf must not be a Tesla! The next Golf must not come from China! “
Diess responded to concerns about further job cuts – but did not address the drastic number of up to 30,000 that he had recently brought up to the irritation of many employees. “I want your children and grandchildren to still have a secure job here with us in Wolfsburg in 2030,” he said.
But: “The jobs that exist today will certainly be fewer within the next 10 to 15 years – especially in administration at group level, but also in production and development.” At the same time, new and different work is being added.
“We mustn’t let Tesla destroy our site”
The CEO admitted: “We have to talk to each other.” However, regarding Volkswagen’s future opportunities, especially in Lower Saxony, he also made it clear: “It is not Herbert Diess or Daniela Cavallo who decide. The customers decide. “
Diess initially canceled his participation in the information event, but after Cavallo intervened, he postponed a trip to US investors that was planned instead. “Only together can we make Volkswagen future-proof,” he said. To do this, you have to move the group “in good time to change course”. With regard to competitor Tesla, which is about to start its new plant in Grünheide near Berlin, this means: “We must not let Tesla destroy our location, our corporate headquarters!”
From Diess’ point of view, the VW headquarters has a good chance of “becoming the flagship for car production again”. But for this to happen, the Trinity project has to be a success. For e-cars, significantly less traditional labor is required overall, which requires a lot of new skills. Diess: “We are planning faster production times and more efficient forms of cooperation.”
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