Summary
Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume faced boos from workers during a speech at the Wolfsburg plant as he defended cost-cutting measures, including potential plant closures and job cuts.
Speaking to 20,000 employees amid ongoing union walkouts, Blume emphasized the challenges posed by high manufacturing costs, sluggish EV sales, and competition from China, stressing that the company must adapt to a “rapidly changing environment.”
Unions and workers have been resisting these plans, intensifying tensions since the company announced its restructuring efforts in September.
It’s embarrassing that they think they’re better off without the lower margin products. Obviously someone else is going to step in and use the know how learned to also start building higher margin cars… Like high schoolers could understand this. But because the CEOs and managers focus on earning more money per point the brand is worth they make the totally wrong decisions for the medium-term. Not even speaking about the long term…