Volkswagen Stakeholders Meet to Decide Future of Company
Management is weighing deeper cuts as unions stage protests and warn that closing plants would face strong resistance.
- On Thursday, July 9, 2026, Volkswagen's supervisory board met in Wolfsburg to evaluate CEO Oliver Blume's sweeping restructuring plan, which proposes closing four German factories and cutting up to 100,000 jobs.
- Faced with rising Chinese competition, U.S. import tariffs, and high domestic operating costs, Volkswagen is under unprecedented pressure to overhaul the business model that underpinned decades of success but now struggles with excess capacity.
- Germany's largest industrial union, IG Metall, staged protests at roughly 20 Volkswagen Group sites ahead of the meeting, opposing potential closures in Hanover, Emden, Zwickau, and Neckarsulm that would affect 15% of the 630,000-strong global workforce.
- The Volkswagen Law requires a two-thirds majority for plant closures, effectively granting labor representatives who hold half the supervisory board seats and Lower Saxony, which holds a 20% stake, substantial veto power over management decisions.
- Management and labor stakeholders anticipate months of negotiations, while Blume has floated alternatives to outright closures, including shifting Chinese-market production to German sites or partnering with defense contractors to utilize spare capacity.
111 Articles
111 Articles
The Volkswagen Group has launched the countdown for the implementation of its future plan. It has done so today at the company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg. The CEO of the German automotive consortium, Oliver Blume, has presented to the Supervisory Board the restrictive measures to recover lost profitability after a period of wrong strategies, the massive arrival of Chinese manufacturers, European and US tariff policies, and the outcome of world …
Up to 120,000 jobs are on the tip at VW. NRW also fears serious consequences for the automotive industry and suppliers.
The German automotive giant Volkswagen is facing tough times. According to reports in the German press, the company's management wants to shut down production at four German factories. Up to 120,000 jobs are reported to be at risk, according to Bild. And the model range could be reduced by half, according to a press release from the company.
The threat of a major social conflict is high at Volkswagen
At a supervisory board in Wolfsburg, the management was discussing on Thursday 9 July a massive plan to abolish jobs by 2030. However, the second largest car group in the world has earned €6.9 billion in profits last year, but wants to improve its margins.
On the day of the Supervisory Board called to evaluate the Group's largest restructuring (100 thousand redundancies and 4 factories closed in a few years) the unions launch a massive mobilization: "Ready to the maxi social conflict."
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