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From peace-maker to taboo-breaker, VW boss Blume handles the unions

Volkswagen employer Oliver Blume, currently battling slowing demand for electrical cars and trucks and Chinese competitors, need to now put aside his mantle as group player to take on yet another tough challenger, Germany's powerful labour unions.

The pressure on Europe's leading carmaker was laid bare this week when Volkswagen divulged it was not only preparing to scrap a 30-year old task security plan however weighing the closure of plants in Germany.

Moritz Kronenberger, portfolio supervisor at Volkswagen shareholder Union Financial investment, calls these the company's two holy cows.

By taking them on, Blume sets a clash with one of Germany's mightiest stakeholder groups, the IG Metall union, whose primary goal is to safeguard tasks and websites and safeguard the favourable working conditions in Europe's biggest economy.

VW works council head Daniela Cavallo stated unions would fiercely withstand the plans, ruling out any factory closures on her watch. She stated a personnel conference on Wednesday, where management will face workers, would be very unpleasant.

Volkswagen has actually not closed a plant given that 1988 when it shut its Westmoreland site in Pennsylvania. In July it stated it might close an Audi factory in Brussels citing a sharp drop in demand for high-end electric automobiles.

HIGH COSTS IN GERMANY

The issue: German market is falling further behind worldwide competition due to high energy and labour expenses, requiring a few of its most storied business, consisting of Thyssenkrupp , to review handle workers long seen as sacrosanct.

Investors are remembering, with Volkswagen shares down by nearly a 3rd over the past five years, making it the worst entertainer among major European carmakers.

The problem for Blume, 56, and the reason he has little choice besides to square off with IG Metall, is how very finely spread the stretching VW Group has actually ended up being in the middle of growing competition, most especially from China.

It is behind schedule on a 10 billion euro ($ 11 billion). cost-cutting program at its name brand while requiring to. fund crucial international jobs, including a possible $5. billion investment in U.S. EV maker Rivian and a. partnership with China's Xpeng.

If more financial investments, such as in Rivian and XPeng, wish to. be accomplished, those cost savings need to come from somewhere, and it. appears underutilised plants are no longer a taboo, marking a. huge cultural modification, stated Matthias Schmidt, a European vehicle. markets analyst.

Decades of CEOs who wanted to do something similar ... will. feel vindicated if Blume can make the move stick.

Previous Volkswagen employers, including Herbert Diess and Bernd. Pischetsrieder, failed in their attempts to make significant. changes to the Wolfsburg-based carmaker as the unions stood. company.

' UNGOVERNABLE'

Blume, who took over as CEO of the group in 2022, has. maintained good relations with the unions along with the. effective Porsche and Piech families that manage Volkswagen, a. key requirement to browse various stakeholder interests.

With the group for 3 years, he is credited with. executing modification at the Porsche AG division he. likewise heads while generally avoiding prominent clashes with. labour representatives.

With Volkswagen, there's always this stress between what's. required and what is possible, therefore this is why we've been. down this road sometimes previously, said Stephen Reitman of. Bernstein, who has covered Volkswagen since the mid-80s.

Oliver Blume is implied to be the peacemaker, was indicated to be. ... the one who might bridge all the various constituencies,. he said, adding the current scenario recommended that technique. was not necessarily working.

Volkswagen's decades-old governance structure hands huge. influence to the regional state of Lower Saxony along with. labour unions.

Lower Saxony keeps a 20% ballot share and can block secret. decisions after the company was put in the hands of the. federal government, which later on offered its stake, and the state,. following World War Two.

Labour representatives make up half of Volkswagen's. supervisory board, where decisions about production websites. need two-thirds approval.

The law on the matter specifies that the two-thirds majority. is needed for the construction and relocation of production. facilities, without describing actual closure.

That might leave wiggle room for management, while unions. could argue that a relocation is similar in nature to a closure,. according to people acquainted with the matter.

The 1.2% rise in Volkswagen shares on the news on Monday. that management would countenance closures recommended market. support for Blume's determination to handle the task.

Yet Union Investment's Kronenberger said a bigger rally was. unlikely without an indicator that the unions will play ball.

Its leadership structure is paralysing VW - making it. ' ungovernable' and destroying it, said Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer,. head of the automobile think tank at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

That's why we have actually been seeing VW crises emerging again and. again for 40 years, simply as holds true now.

(source: Reuters)