Challenging times are ahead for the German automotive industry. Since Volkswagen management wants to cancel bonuses for all workers and reduce wages, the question arises as to what benefits the company pays. Only 17 percent of Germany’s workforce works at Volkswagen, and elsewhere in the world, labour costs are significantly lower than at home.
Regardless of salary, employees are not responsible for business decisions that have made Volkswagen less competitive and thus in financial trouble.
Along with Volkswagen’s troubles, images of the company’s production line have flooded the world these days. The monthly salary for installing, for example, a car door on the body is up to 4,500 euros gross.
From the website kununu.com, where employees anonymously enter their earnings for mutual comparison, it appears that Volkswagen allocates an average of 50,000 to 56,000 euros per year to workers on the conveyor belt. Half of the employees who do not work in production receive 7,000 euros gross per month, above the so-called plus the tariff for IT specialists or department heads, which starts at 8,500 euros, and whose salaries the administration wants to reduce by 18 percent.
There are also generous anniversary awards: for 25 years of work, an additional 1.45 earnings, for 35 years, almost three additional earnings.
Volkswagen management will cut wages, cut bonuses and eliminate a nearly 20-year-old agreement that limits older workers on the production line to 25 to 33 hours a week. The new proposal is 35-hour working hours.
Wages at Volkswagen are higher than those at BMW or Mercedes because the unions have enormous power in the company and the support of the second largest owner – the state of Lower Saxony. However, worker wages became a problem as Volkswagen began to lose competitiveness and thus profits in China and other markets.
The biggest question is whether the company will close any of its plants in Germany, but a final decision is not expected anytime soon.
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