VW Plans Pay Freeze Through 2030 – IG Metall Demands 5% More

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents VW Plans Pay Freeze Through 2030 – IG Metall Demands 5% More.

Hundreds of thousands of Volkswagen employees are set to receive no collective bargaining pay increase through 2030, according to management’s plans. As the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ reported on Monday, VW wants to freeze wages in Germany at the 2026 level and has tabled a corresponding proposal for the upcoming collective bargaining round. The current collective bargaining agreement expires on December 31.

The IG Metall union responded with a clear counter-demand: It is calling for 5% more pay—and is thus taking a stand against the toughest cost-cutting drive in the company’s history. As recently as September, VW announced an additional 50,000 job cuts, according to the Spanish business newspaper ‘Cinco Días’. The manufacturer is responding to declining margins and competitive pressure from China.

What the plans mean for the workforce

It has not yet been conclusively established how far the proposal extends beyond Germany. While the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ and ‘ABC’ treat the proposal as primarily applying to the German operation and its “hundreds of thousands” of employees, the Madrid business newspaper ‘Expansión’ goes further: According to it, the measure could affect “many of the 600,000 employees worldwide,” including Seat’s workforce in Martorell. Whether German collective bargaining agreements will directly carry over to Spain or other countries depends on the outcome of negotiations with IG Metall.

One thing is certain: A new collective bargaining agreement must be in place by the end of the year. If that does not happen, warning strikes at the German plants are on the cards—amid a restructuring that VW says it fundamentally needs to overhaul.

Status: further details to follow.