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Volkswagen workers plan to launch rolling four-hour strikes on Monday, ratcheting up the pressure on management on the same day that a fourth round of negotiations over pay cuts and factory closures gets under way.<\/p>\n
In resistance to the ailing automotive giant’s cost-saving plans, workers staged two-hour strikes earlier this week at nine Volkswagen car and component plants in Germany.<\/p>\n
In Wolfsburg, the world headquarters of the Volkswagen Group and the site of Monday’s negotiations, a protest rally is also planned, Thorsten Gr\u00f6ger of the IG Metall industrial trade union said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
“Around 100,000 strikers sent a loud signal to VW’s management at the beginning of December,” he said of the first strike day on December 2. “We will now follow up on December 9 and increase the pressure on the company at the negotiating table.”<\/p>\n
The same nine factories in Germany – in Wolfsburg, Zwickau, Hanover, Emden, Kassel-Baunatal, Braunschweig, Salzgitter, Chemnitz and Dresden – are once again affected.<\/p>\n
The rolling wave of four-hour strikes will start at the Wolfsburg plant at 10:30 am (0930 GMT), the union said. Two hours later, the fourth round of negotiations starts in the Volkswagen Arena in the city.<\/p>\n
Volkswagen chief executive Oliver Blume on Wednesday defended the proposed cost-cutting programme, which includes slashing wages, closing plants and enforcing redundancies. He called the situation “serious” and said that “urgent measures are needed.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n