WORKERS at nine Volkswagen plants in Germany launched a series of rolling two-hour strikes today in resistance to a programme of pay cuts and factory closures.
Volkswagen says the swingeing cuts are necessary to cope with a slack European car market.
The so-called warning strikes included the company’s base plant at Wolfsburg, where workers were set to rally against a cost-cutting drive by the car-maker’s management in which they face the threat of the company’s first plant closures in its home country.
A setback for IG Metall at Tesla’s Berlin plant has ignited claims of intimidation and raised fears for the future of collective bargaining and workplace democracy, says TONY BURKE
SHARON GRAHAM reflects on the lessons of Murdoch’s confrontation with print workers – and argues that, in an age of AI, automation and net zero, only early organisation, collective power and planning can stop history repeating itself


