Germany: Volkswagen shelves the emblematic “5.000 x 5.000” project with the IG Metall’s agreement

After removing the famous four-day week in 2006, it is now the turn of the "5.000 x 5.000" project, created in 2001 to train and employ 5.000 unemployed people, to disappear. The agreement, concluded in early November 2008 between VW's management and the IG Metall, is part of the "Volkswagen Way" and plans the integration of the employees from the Auto 5.000 subsidiary as "house personnel." The agreement also improves the remuneration of 5.000 agency workers in six factories. (Ref. 080884)
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In 2001, Volkswagen announced the “5.000 x 5.000” project in the parent
plant of Wolfsburg. Negotiated with the trade unions, the initiative aimed at
reinstating unemployed people into the labor market while enabling Volkswagen to lower production costs
and to avoid the relocation of new models.

Auto
5.000 lab
. Closely monitored by the economic press,
the project planned that 5.000 employees, not considered as house personnel,
would work in average 35 hours a week for 5.000 gross deutschemarks a

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