In September, 175,000 workers at 280 locations in Germany’s automotive and supplier industry took part in a day of protest against planned job cuts in the car industry. The turnout shows that Germany’s workforce is prepared to fight for its jobs and its future. At several large Volkswagen (VW) locations, however, the true collective power of workers remained largely hidden behind factory gates.
At VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, thousands of workers gathered inside the factory and walked to “Hall 11,” where IG Metall (IGM) chairwoman Christiane Benner and Daniela Cavallo, head of VW’s group works council, spoke. At the adjacent “public” rally in front of the union building, only around 300 workers appeared. At the Kassel-Baunatal plant, about 850 workers took part in an “inside the factory” event, according to IGM’s Vertrauensleute, or union stewards. IGM, which represents workers in Germany’s still mighty car industry, had planned for mostly stewards to participate.
One charitable reading is that IGM was unsure whether workers would answer its call. A less charitable one is that the union wanted to confine the protest to its “controllable” body rather than risk a genuine, and perhaps uncontrollable, protest by disgruntled workers against VW’s management. IGM wants to negotiate with that management. At VW, its relationship with management is commonly seen as that of an assistant.
At another Volkswagen location, Braunschweig, stewards were sent into production with a union-developed “discussion guide,” even though participation by all three shifts had been agreed beforehand.
On the whole, the “Union Day of Action” showed two things. First, the union can mobilise workers against management’s planned job cuts. Second, local union representatives can limit or contain workers’ protest. German workers tend to follow their union. They are still more like the rather tame protagonist of Heinrich Mann’s Der Untertan (Man of Straw, also translated as The Loyal Subject) than anarcho-syndicalists, who combine anarchism with revolutionary trade unionism.
One of the key questions is not just how many people took part: 175,000, or more, or fewer? It must also be asked who decided what form the “Union Day of Action” should take. Which proposals from workers about how best to challenge management were addressed, and which were eliminated by the union apparatus? Why did it appear, at several VW sites, as if management had received protection from the ever so compliant section of the union apparatus?
The cuts behind the protest
The reason for the Union Day of Action at VW was the planned removal of more than 60,000 jobs in Germany by the Volkswagen corporation. Under the most recent collective agreement between IGM and VW (December 2024), VW’s works council, the legally elected body of workers’ representatives, and IGM accepted what is called “socially acceptable” job reduction: more than 35,000 jobs at VW’s German locations by 2030. The term is not only the language of managerialism. It also means that workers who leave through retirement, by finding a new job and so on, are not replaced.
Matters are further complicated by the fact that Germany’s labour relations run on two parallel tracks. Union stewards have no legal protection other than the strength of the local union organisation. Alongside them sits a legally elected and protected works council. Stewards tend to be more progressive, while works councils tend to operate within the confines of German labour law as a junior partner to management. Stewards who comply with that law, with no wildcat strikes and the like, are selected and promoted by the union and often rewarded with election to the works council, which at VW means an almost lifelong job. [FLAG: this is a significant allegation. Add a source or attribute it.]
Split among three institutions, an external union apparatus, a factory-based official body (the works council) and a factory-based union body (the stewards), workers find “divide and conquer” brought to life.
In exchange for the collective agreement, Volkswagen’s management secured a long-term reduction in production capacity and a cut in annual labour costs of €1.5 billion ($1.7bn). In return, compulsory redundancies are excluded until the end of 2030.
The agreed cuts were to be achieved primarily through the so-called “demographic curve,” that is, retirement. In 2026, VW’s top management calculated a need for further “adjustments” (meaning job cuts) of about 50,000 [FLAG: group-wide or Germany only? Please state. According to IGM, about half of these, roughly 25,000, would fall in Germany. Those 25,000 are not yet on a definite management list of specific jobs. Together with the 35,000 already agreed, that makes some 60,000 jobs to be eliminated at VW’s German locations. [FLAG: 35,000 + 25,000 is exactly 60,000, not “more than”]. Confirm the figure.]
For workers, it is largely irrelevant whether jobs disappear through resignation, retirement, unfilled positions, the cancellation of the transition from apprenticeship to full-time work or other means. Each job eliminated increases the pressure on the remaining workforce, and cuts on this scale will weaken Germany’s industrial regions. They mean a loss of income, health, training opportunities and family support structures, and the future of entire regions is at stake. This is capitalism, the best system, so we are made to believe.
It is also a question of whether a union can shape the conversion of an entire industry towards sustainability, instead of supporting management’s job cuts in a “socially responsible manner” (read: sharpening the edges of neoliberal capitalism so that the system works better in favour of corporations). Since more than 35,000 jobs have already been agreed to be axed and VW’s top management eyes a further 25,000 in Germany alone, the question must be asked: what else needs to happen for car production to stop for a visible and impactful protest?
The union did not want that. Instead of a proper strike, IGM organised a day-long, nationwide action on 21 September under the motto “For a Future instead of Job Cuts.” IGM called on workers at car manufacturers and suppliers to take part, and the plan was to make the protest visible to the public. The participation of 175,000 workers proves that the often-alleged passivity of German workers does not sufficiently explain the weakness of the public outcry. The decisive factor was the conditions under which workers were able to participate and whether they were involved in planning the day.
At different locations, rallies were held in front of factory gates, and other activities took place at shift changes. In Hanover, about 6,500 workers took part. Workers at VW’s commercial vehicles division, at ZF Wabco and at other sites took their protest outside the factory gates.
At VW, however, the large workforces in Wolfsburg, Kassel and Braunschweig were mobilised primarily in a highly controlled way. Cynics might argue that controlling workers is the raison d’être of trade unions.
Wolfsburg
At VW’s main plant in Wolfsburg, the union did mobilise workers. But the public rally in front of the union building was held on a Monday between 10 and 11 am, and anyone on the morning shift who had not been officially released from work could not attend. That is how such protests are organised in Germany, and it would be rather unthinkable in France. [FLAG: support or attribute the France comparison.]
IGM also segregated the large mobilisation inside VW’s factories from the public protest. Media access to the events inside was tightly limited. Only the public broadcaster ZDF, the private channel Sat.1 and the news agency dpa (Deutsche Presse-Agentur) were admitted, and other outlets were kept from the main event. The thousands who came together to protest against VW’s job cuts did so out of the public’s sight. Winning public support and solidarity, which is undoubtedly strong throughout Germany [FLAG: add a poll or source], was severely hindered by IGM.
Kassel
In Kassel, the union’s plan was to limit participation, and it succeeded: at Volkswagen Kassel-Baunatal, the Day of Action remained an internal affair. There was an assembly for the early and late shifts in the foundry and an extraordinary meeting of union stewards. In all, 500 workers took part in the morning and 350 in the afternoon, drumming and clapping as they moved from the main factory gate into an internal meeting room, away from the public.
About 200 “self-organised” workers, not controlled by IGM, also attended the rally. [FLAG: in addition to the 850, or included in it?] IGM and the works council had called for the rally. According to rumours, pressure was put on workers not to let “other” workers take part, as these were not elected union officials. [FLAG: source for the rumours, or cut.] Some workers took part anyway.
Many workers criticised the decision to keep the rally inside the factory. The officially published report [FLAG: name the report and who published it] is nonetheless revealing, because it describes a conflict between workers and the union organisation over participation in, and organisation of, the protest. The union’s nationwide call had included all workers and all shifts. When participation was deliberately restricted to stewards, the number of participants was sharply reduced before the Day of Action had even begun.
At the nearby Daimler Truck plant in Kassel, the action took place publicly, in front of the factory gate, with 150 people attending. The comparison exposes the weaknesses of both approaches. At VW, many more workers were included, but their protest was hardly visible. At Daimler, the protest was open to the public, but it reached only a small part of the workforce. The choice should not be between many people behind factory gates and a few in front of them. A public Day of Action depends on linking broad participation inside factories with visible pressure from outside. A small rally outside the Kassel plant is no substitute for a mass rally of thousands of workers.
Braunschweig
Braunschweig shows the limits of the Day of Action. At a meeting on 16 September, before the rally, there was considerable discussion of the planned protest. Twenty-seven contributions were made on what form it should take, but the debate was stopped after the twelfth, to be continued at a later date. No date was ever set. Fifteen contributions went undiscussed, even though a nationwide day of action was only days away.
The plant’s stewards and works council issued a three-page “participation guide” [FLAG: original says 21 September, the day of the action, which conflicts with its apparent role as preparation]. Confirm the date and whether this is the same document as the “discussion guide” below. It called for equal participation by the early, late and night shifts. Afterwards, the works council, stewards and IGM were to tell workers which demands had been accepted and how next steps were planned, and a debate involving the works council, stewards and interested workers was to follow. One key sentence stated that production should not be the sole yardstick for the duration and design of the Day of Action. [FLAG: please quote the sentence in full. As written, it does not clearly support the claim that production should continue unhindered.]
On the day, stewards received a “discussion guide” for debates inside the factory. Some stewards wanted to take the action further and include a strike, and several announced that a strike would be the best way forward. But feedback from workers and stewards did not add up to an agreed picture.
What next?
The strategy of the union, the works council and many stewards succeeded in confining the Day of Action to the inside of factories, preventing visibility and broader solidarity from a German public that is hugely in favour of the workers. Even so, the day showed that the willingness to resist is there. The works council and IGM must now decide whether to turn that willingness into action or to continue supporting production and VW’s management with as few interruptions as possible.
Workers should no longer leave such decisions to the aficionados of union-management cooperation, or perhaps complicity. Alternatives include these ideas:
Work must not be eliminated together with people.
Existing work must be distributed fairly, and industrial production aligned with meaningful, future-orientated tasks.
There must be no further job cuts, factory closures or outsourcing to distant locations.
Working time must be reduced with full pay and no cuts to personnel.
Socially useful products must be built, supporting public transport, energy storage, small vehicles, load-carrying bicycles and cargo trams, with appropriate investment in all existing production sites.
All workers on temporary contracts must be moved into full-time positions under the principle of “one operation, one workforce.”
The “on demand” workforce, management’s so-called “duty shifts” and the expectation of continuous availability must end.
The weekend belongs to workers and their families.
The transition must be democratically controlled and lead towards decent, humane and sustainable mobility, not production for the military. Armaments are no replacement for jobs destroyed in the civilian industry.
Public contracts must go only to companies that offer job security, are part of Germany’s system of collective agreements and are committed to Germany as a production location.
Above all, the reduction of working time at full pay must remain at the centre. It distributes work fairly and offers a collective response to job cuts. Those who focus only on state subsidies and energy prices accept, in principle, the loss of jobs and negotiate only the speed at which the cuts are carried out.
