During a visit to the VW headquarters, SPD leader Lars Klingbeil called for the rapid introduction of special electricity tariffs for industry and more investment in the e-car charging network, among other things. “I demand that we in Germany get an industrial electricity price very quickly. That will help get through a phase in which there are many energy policy upheavals,” he said on Monday in Wolfsburg. Klingbeil wanted to meet Volkswagen HR Director Gunnar Kilian and works council chief Daniela Cavallo there.
“As a state, we have to help, we need state investments in infrastructure and other things,” he added. Separate and discounted tariffs for industrially used electricity should help to reduce energy costs in many companies. The sometimes extreme increases since the beginning of the Ukraine war are now becoming an existential burden for some companies. Business associations also see them as a growing threat to Germany and Europe as a whole.
The auto industry as a key German sector is “in tough global competition,” said the SPD leader. It is important “that we ensure that the jobs of the future are created here, that economic growth occurs. But that we also go in the direction of climate neutrality.” He thinks the future focus on e-mobility is right. “Now it’s a matter of expanding the infrastructure, that there are charging stations, that the cars are produced – and that the employees are also taken along on this path.”
Like other car manufacturers and suppliers, VW will have to redistribute a number of jobs from classic combustion engine production to the production of alternative drives in the medium term. Klingbeil said he had the impression that this was going well: “There is a close connection between management and a strong works council.” However, a lot is demanded of employees in industrial change.
The necessary investments and the need for further training are a tour de force for many companies. In addition, there is a considerable shortage of skilled workers in digitization. According to a works council survey by the Hans Böckler Foundation, which is close to the trade union, only a good 43 percent of companies have “long-term planning for qualification that strategically aims to make employees fit for future requirements”. In half of the cases, the employer makes a general effort to “qualify the employees for current requirements”. The survey data is from 2021.
