Job losses may soon result from the biggest scandal ever to hit German automaker Volkswagen (VW). On 18 October the German Press Agency DPA indicated that according to VW’s central works council, VW management was looking to close some of its temporary employment positions where currently the company employs close to 7,000 temporary workers in the country. At the beginning of October, German Economy Minister, Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) visited the company’s main factory in Wolfsburg and said that following the scandal, partial unemployment provisions might be extended to VW’s temporary workers. The scandal has weighed on the IG Metall congress, currently underway in Frankfurt. During the congress the metal union’s newly elected president Jörg Hofmann defended the extraordinary co-management model currently in place at VW. For the union president VW’s ‘dieselgate’ just goes to prove how co-management should be strengthened and not reduced.
Temporary jobs on the line. On Wednesday 21 October, during a visit to VW’s main factory at Wolfsburg and accompanied by both Stephan Weil (SPD), Prime Minister of Lower Saxony and Bernd Osterloh, the president of the central works council, Matthias Müller who has succeeded Martin Winterkorn as the group’s Chief Executive attempted to reassure workers worried about their jobs. He said that for the moment their jobs were not on the line. “Currently, we do not see the need to fall back on partial
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