Report on vote of no confidence: VW boss loses support from the supervisory board

Report on vote of no confidence
VW boss loses support from the supervisory board

Before VW boss Diess answers questions from his employees tomorrow, the dispute over his person escalates. After the works council, the supervisory board should also move away from it, and there is even talk of a vote of no confidence. Nobody denies that the auto company is facing difficult times.

The dispute between VW boss Herbert Diess and several members of the supervisory board is intensifying: Shortly before an information event for the workforce at the Wolfsburg headquarters, speculations made the rounds that the manager should have clashed with the works council and the state of Lower Saxony. Nobody in corporate circles wanted to say openly that the CEO might have fallen out of favor. But the mood, so it was said by several people in the vicinity of the inspectors, was extremely bad.

According to information from the “Handelsblatt”, leading figures are said to have even expressed their distrust at a meeting with Diess last week. In the meantime, preparations have also been made for the mediation committee in the supervisory board to deal with the composition of the board of directors. A source denied that such procedural steps had already been formally initiated. Regardless of this, and in general, one is increasingly irritated by the behavior of the CEO. From the other side it was said that there were confidential and constructive discussions on how to proceed in a smaller group.

The boom at Volkswagen has been hanging crooked for a few weeks. Works councils in particular criticize Diess’ communication style and feel constantly provoked. In view of the situation at the underutilized headquarters in Wolfsburg, supporters of the manager consider his wake-up calls to the cost situation to be entirely appropriate.

Just barely escaped being expelled

At a supervisory board meeting at the end of September, Diess brought a number of allegedly up to 30,000 endangered jobs at VW into play. Afterwards, however, he emphasized that this was only meant as a possible “extreme scenario” if the company did not become significantly more efficient in the next few years and resolutely continued the change in the direction of e-mobility and digitization.

At first, Diess did not want to come to the works meeting planned for this Thursday, but instead preferred an appointment with US investors. VW works council boss and supervisory board member Daniela Cavallo criticized him unusually harshly and accused him of not being interested in the worries of the workforce, especially in the current mixture of production downtimes, short-time work and industry change. The manager later announced his appearance.

The 63-year-old had just received a new contract in the summer – Diess is said to have requested an early extension beforehand. Several supervisory boards felt they were being put under pressure by these and other advances. In mid-2020 it had crashed even more violently when Diess members of the committee publicly accused the company of indiscretions and criminal behavior in front of many managers. At that time, he is said to have only narrowly escaped being expelled through a personal apology. Some people are astonished at the maneuvers that are perceived as going it alone – they always put one on top.

Wolfsburg plant underutilized

In the meantime, it is clear that the largest German group will have to change a lot in the coming years – especially in the Wolfsburg headquarters, not far from the new “gigafactory” of rival Tesla near Berlin. In industry and among investors, Diess enjoys a high reputation because of its insistence on more profitability and the increased spending of billions on e-models and new technologies.

Tomorrow, Thursday, the workforce will be informed about the further course, Diess wants to answer questions from the employees. The employee representatives also expect Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil and IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann, who both sit on the VW supervisory board.

Works councils are demanding at least one additional electric model for Wolfsburg, which will come before the “Trinity” project, which will probably start in 2026. At the same time, the chip crisis and, in some cases, the difficult procurement of raw materials are slowing down production in the foreseeable future. Tens of thousands of VW employees have been on short-time work again and again for months. In 2021, there could be as little production in Wolfsburg as it was in the late 1950s.

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