Volkswagen management and IG Metall meet in Hannover on 23 October 2026 to check which parts of the December 2024 deal still stand.
Volkswagen terminated ten collective agreements at the end of September, with effect from 31 December 2026, while job security until 2030 is not among them.
The Zukunftsplan 2030 targets 50,000 job cuts worldwide, with half possibly in Germany, and an operating margin of nine euros per 100 euros of revenue by 2030.
Works council chair Daniela Cavallo described great unrest, and IG Metall's Thorsten Gröger said the union was disappointed and angry after the first session.
The futures of the Emden, Hannover and Zwickau plants and the Audi site in Neckarsulm beyond 2031 to 2034 remain open, according to the union's account of the plan.
Volkswagen management and IG Metall are due to meet on Friday, 23 October 2026, in Hannover for a second review session on the 2024 future collective agreement (Zukunftstarifvertrag). This is not a bargaining round: either side can invoke the clause when it believes core conditions of the deal have changed, which obliges the other side to talk. The union invoked it in mid-September and demanded clarity on the supervisory board's new cost decisions. Management had asked for a session of its own, arguing that the savings agreed in 2024 no longer suffice. The meeting is meant to establish which commitments from the December 2024 deal still hold.
The first session on 30 September 2026 was overshadowed by Volkswagen's termination of ten collective agreements. The terminations cover the pay and framework agreements as well as rules on grading, allowances and training, with effect from 31 December 2026. Job security until the end of 2030 is not among the cancelled agreements. According to the union, the company has since presented no concrete list of demands and has not answered open questions adequately. At that meeting VW reportedly voiced serious doubts about delivering the investments in new models and plants promised in 2024. Thorsten Gröger, the IG Metall district leader for Lower Saxony, said afterwards the union was disappointed and angry, and that it now expects answers to a list of questions.
The supervisory board agreed a Zukunftsplan 2030 in early September to make the group considerably more profitable, giving management a mandate to restructure and save billions. The target is for nine euros of operating profit to remain from every 100 euros of revenue by 2030, against 3.80 euros most recently. Management plans 50,000 job cuts worldwide on top of earlier programmes, and half of them could fall in Germany. The future of the Emden, Hannover and Zwickau plants and of the Audi site in Neckarsulm beyond 2031 to 2034 remains open. VW points to underused plants, weak car sales, relatively high production costs in Germany, US tariffs and growing competition from China.
Arne Meiswinkel, personnel board member of the core VW brand, rejected the union's accusations at the time.
“Volkswagen keeps to its agreements.”
According to the company, the aim is to implement the measures agreed so far consistently and to use all remaining options for socially acceptable job cuts.
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IG Metall wants the talks held at the affected plants rather than on the executive floor of the brand house in Wolfsburg, where Oliver Blume's management sits. Thorsten Gröger put it bluntly:
“Whoever gambles with the existence of tens of thousands of employees must also face the reaction of those workforces.”
Daniela Cavallo, chair of the group works council, described great unrest in the plants, with staff seeing the terminations after their 2024 concessions as an affront and a challenge. Under the 2024 deal, employees accepted cut bonuses and allowances, suspended pay rises and the agreed reduction of more than 35,000 German jobs by 2030, in return for no operational redundancies until the end of 2030. Ahead of the session IG Metall said:
“The board is steering Volkswagen with its eyes open into a hard confrontation.”
The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) argued in a newsletter that pay, holiday days and other gains are not the cause of the crisis.
The 23 October session is a review rather than bargaining. Formal tariff negotiations are expected to begin in a few weeks, when the dispute becomes concrete. Also on the table is a plan for VW staff worldwide to forgo pay rises for several years. IG Metall expects answers to its list of questions and wants union members to decide on any eventual result.
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Volkswagen management and the IG Metall union are due to check on 23 October which commitments from the December 2024 deal still stand. The union wants the talks held at the affected plants, while VW cites weak sales, US tariffs and Chinese competition.
AI text based on reports by Handelsblatt, tagesschau.de, N-tv and other publishers. Published .