On 28 January Volkswagen Group management together with the IG Metall union announced the signature of an in-house agreement for the 4,000 employees of the Group’s new software development company, the Car.Software Organisation (CSO), which was founded in 2020. The agreement, which draws on both Volkswagen’s in-house collective agreement and that of the metal industry sector, is pioneering in so far as it has a special focus on working in autonomous teams, and includes new features such as the introduction of the ‘work limitation’ provision. The agreement is also innovative in terms of the operational and human ‘scope’ of this new Group unit. Lastly, the agreement is intended to be ‘iterative’ i.e. one that will be regularly adjusted.
Negotiating an agreement for a new company built on VW’s existing multifaceted structure. As part of its digital transformation process, the Volkswagen Group decided to combine all its software development activities in a single company, the Car.Software Organisation (CSO). “The idea is to develop integrated systems for all of the Group’s brands from a single base. CSO’s main goal is the development of the VW.OS, a common operating system for all cars, as well as harmonized access to the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud”, tells spokesman Walther Schneeweiß for the Bavarian section of IG Metall, whose president Johann Horn led the negotiations on the trade union side.
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