Car cavalcades and warning strikes: IG Metall mobilizes against cost-cutting plans at Volkswagen, Mercedes and Porsche

Background

The backdrop to the mobilization are reports by "Manager Magazin," NDR and ARD Plusminus, according to which up to 100,000 jobs worldwide could be at stake at the Volkswagen Group – twice as many as previously announced. Of these, 35,000 positions were attributed to the core Volkswagen brand, the rest to subsidiaries such as Audi and Porsche. Group CEO Oliver Blume had announced in the spring that the company was working on a new "Target Picture 2030" and would significantly tighten its cost-cutting course. "We will turn over every stone," Blume said at the time. According to "Der Spiegel," vehicle production at the four plants in Hannover, Emden, Zwickau and Neckarsulm could be phased out gradually by the end of 2034 – beginning in 2031 in Zwickau and Emden, 2032 in Hannover, 2034 in Neckarsulm.

IG Metall warns that several thousand jobs could also be affected at the VW plant in Baunatal, which belongs to the group's components division and supplies parts for all brands. At Porsche, according to earlier reports, it is mainly positions in management, administration and development that are up for discussion; negotiations there over a second cost-cutting package entered a decisive phase. "Die Beschäftigten sind nicht das Sparschwein der Autoindustrie!" said Barbara Resch, IG Metall district leader for Baden-Württemberg, with reference to the ongoing rounds of cuts.

Protest in Stuttgart and Neckarsulm

In Stuttgart, a car cavalcade with around 250 registered vehicles set off at midday, with employees of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche protesting against social cuts and cost-cutting plans by their employers. The union also directed the action against the federal government's reform plans in health, long-term care and pension insurance, as well as against "attacks by the automotive employers." In Neckarsulm (Heilbronn district), a rally with more than 500 participants was planned at Audi at the same time, to which works councilors and IG Metall shop stewards had mobilized.

Slogans of the protest movement included "Jetzt zählt's! Vorfahrt für Solidarität." IG Metall chairwoman Christiane Benner spoke of a "klares Signal an den Vorstand: Nicht mit uns!" With reference to the discussion about plant closures, Lower Saxony's deputy minister-president Julia Willie Hamburg (Greens), who herself sits on the VW supervisory board, declared: "Werksschließungen seien keine Zukunftsstrategie." Minister-President Olaf Lies (SPD) also sits on the supervisory board on the side of the state of Lower Saxony, which holds a 20 percent stake in the group. Nevertheless, the outcome of the meeting is open: on the employee side, the ten works council representatives together with Lower Saxony have a majority; one capital representative seat is currently vacant.

Cost-cutting plans at Mercedes-Benz

At the Stuttgart car cavalcade, Mercedes-Benz employees were the special focus. According to group circles, management wanted to negotiate with the works council in the coming weeks on extending working hours without wage compensation. In a letter to the workforce in Germany, it said the board had to "continue to cut costs with maximum urgency" in order to remain competitive on product prices. Specifically, a planned special payment, from which around 90,000 of the roughly 108,000 Mercedes employees in Germany would have benefited, was to be postponed to the following year.

The situation in Baunatal, where the plant was last stably utilized according to plant management and the works council, had already caused uncertainty at the end of June. Then as now, IG Metall is sticking to a peaceful line of protest: the peace obligation at Volkswagen remains in force, so that work stoppages are not initially planned. The last major VW labor dispute was only a year ago: it was only after a weeks-long marathon of negotiations just before Christmas 2024 that the collective bargaining conflict ended in a compromise that ruled out redundancies for operational reasons. Of the already decided 50,000 job cuts, around 37,000 employees are to be reduced through early retirement and severance arrangements.

Reactions and union position

"Die ständigen Angriffe auf die Rechte der Kolleginnen und Kollegen nehmen wir nicht ohne Gegenwehr hin," IG Metall declared. Financial experts, for their part, see the group in an uneven light: the investment bank Jefferies & Company Inc. had rated the VW preferred share "Buy" on 29 June 2026. Blume himself pointed to tariffs, wars, geopolitical tensions and intensified competition as burdens and explained that Volkswagen's previous business model – developing and producing in Europe, selling worldwide – no longer worked in this form.

Resch formulated the union's position unequivocally: "Wer die Zukunft der deutschen Automobilindustrie sichern will, darf nicht die Beschäftigten zur Rechnung bitten." With the action day, works councilors and IG Metall wanted to build pressure on the group's top management against the backdrop of the Wolfsburg supervisory board meeting. Volkswagen itself has so far only confirmed that the board is "intensively working on a future plan for the realignment of the company" – without giving details.