Volkswagen: the IG-Metall creates a new international union network with eastern and central European unions

A few days after the "international union conference with the employees of the Volkswagen group" from April 28 to May 1, 2008 in Wolfsburg (see our article No. 080345), the IG-Metall has drawn a very positive evaluation of the meeting. "We agreed to do everything we could to avoid turning Volkswagen's employees throughout the world against one another", Flavio Benites, from IG-Metall Wolfsburg, told Planet Labor. (Ref. 080390)
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This was the main objective of this conference, which gathered, for the first time, representatives from 15 unions from 14 different countries in Wolfsburg, where Volkswagen’s headquarters are located. According to Flavio Benites, main organizer of the meeting, Volkswagen’s international and European works councils also pursue the same goal, but they don’t have the same breathing space unions have. “Works councils are recognized and funded by the company, and they have to follow different rules

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