Volkswagen strikes pay deal
May 28, 2013
Volkswagen's 102,000 workers in Germany are to receive a pay hike of 3.4 percent in September, as well as an additional 2.2 percent in July 2014, Germany's biggest carmaker announced Tuesday.
During overnight talks on Monday, Volkswagen (VW) adopted the same conditions that had recently been laid out in a wage settlement reached in the German metalworking and electrical engineering sectors.
Workers are also to be granted an extra contribution of 300 euros ($386) each to a company pension fund, VW added.
The chief negotiator for metalworkers' union IG Metal, Hartmut Meine, told a news conference that this round of negotiations had run well compared to previous talks.
"We have had more difficult wage negotiations at Volkswagen [in the past]," Meine said.
This month, VW workers already received a one-off payment of 7,200 euros - a bonus for the carmakers' brilliant performance in 2012 during which it was able to boost sales and profits despite the car crisis in Europe.
The in-house pay deal doesn't affect an additional 150,000 workers in Volkswagen Group subsidiaries such as Porsche and Audi. However, they are also granted 5.6 percent higher wages under the collective bargaining agreement for the German metalworking and electrical engineering sectors.
uhe/kms (Reuters, dpa)