IG Metall presented the workers at VW a “precious” Christmas gift. The expected surrender was announced on Friday evening, after more than 70 hours of negotiations. Just before the weekend and Christmas holidays. On just two days of warning strike, around 100,000 workers each demonstrated their readiness to struggle.

The results:

Factual decoupling from the nation and sector-wide collective agreement. The poor collective agreement result achieved in November is being “suspended” at Volkswagen. These savings are now used to “deal with staff surpluses”, i.e. flexible reductions in working hours, extended partial retirement, etc. In 2031, the remaining workforce can then “look forward” to the meager 5% (mentioned above) from 2024.

But there are also direct wage cuts: the “May payment” (profit sharing) will be canceled for two years, 2026 and 2027. In the following years this will only be paid out at a reduced rate. There are also drastic cuts in the Plus-Bonus tariff. The vacation payment previously paid (around 1,300 euros) will be completely eliminated. In a few years, a bonus will be introduced only for IG Metall members. The anniversary bonuses were “adjusted”, meaning reduced. Overall, at least a few thousand euros less per worker per year. There are also increases in working hours. In the future, workers with “HTV I” contracts will have to work one to two hours more per week.

35,000 layoffs until 2030: The job cuts should be made “socially acceptable,” it is assured. This means the core workforce will largely be spared. Temporary and foreign workers will be affected, such as the over 300 temporary workers at the VW plant in Emden who will be kicked out on January 1st. Both IG Metall and the company’s management remain silent about the VW bosses’ plans to abolish bonuses for temporary workers. The production capacity at the German plants will be reduced by a total of around 735,000 vehicles.

Regarding factory closures are off the table: vehicle production in Dresden will end in 2025, in Osnabrück there are only production plans until mid-2027. The factory in Wolfsburg will lose two production lines – the Golf and Golf Variant will in future be manufactured in Puebla, Mexico. Overall, Volkswagen expects annual savings of around 15 billion euros thanks to IG Metall.

Key aspects of the agreement are:

The result of the negotiations means a drastic intensification of exploitation for a central or core part of the German working class; at least 1.5 billion euros in “labor costs” will be saved. But it’s not just the upper strata of the working class (the well-paid core workforce) who are now being thrown back into the middle strata of our class who are affected. The lower parts of our class are also severely affected (temporary and foreign workers). It should not be forgotten that the agreement now reached will serve as an example for the coming disputes in other parts of the “German economy” (e.g. steel and chemicals).

The results of the negotiations mean as well more parasitism due to the relocation of the Golf production to Mexico. Note Lenin: The export of capital, one of the most essential economic foundations of imperialism, reinforces this complete isolation of the rentier class from production and puts the stamp of parasitism on the entire country, which lives from the exploitation of the labor of some overseas countries and colonies. The pensioner state is the state of parasitic, rotting capitalism, and this fact must necessarily be reflected in all socio-political conditions in the countries concerned in general and in the two main currents of the workers’ movement in particular.