On Wednesday, the following statement establishing a rank-and-file committee at Volkswagen was discussed and approved at the online meeting on the attacks on the VW workforce in Germany. Spread it far and wide among your colleagues and get in touch with us.

Dear colleagues,

Preparations must be made immediately to ward off the threat of sweeping attacks at VW in Germany. Waiting is not an option.

We therefore call on you to join us in building the Volkswagen Rank-and-File Committee—independent of the IG Metall apparatus and its works council.

The IG Metall works council led by Daniela Cavallo proposed immediately after the termination of the employment security contract by VW to prevent plant closures and compulsory redundancies by means of proposing its own savings. As in the past, we are expected to accept job cuts and wage cuts, ostensibly to secure plants. All the experiences at Opel, Ford, Bosch, ZF, etc., make it clear that any concession extorted from us does not prevent a site closure, but only makes it more likely. The only thing that is secured in this way is the incredible incomes of the heads of works councils and trade union officials.

Therefore, the Rank-and-File Committee must be completely independent of the IG Metall bureaucracy. It must unite all workers—whether union members or not.

• All jobs at all locations must be defended in principle! No concessions on wages, pensions, benefits!

We are supposed to bleed for increasing profits and dividends. Shareholders have been transferred almost 5 billion euros this year. We declare that our social interests—secure jobs, decent wages and pensions—are more important than the demands by billionaire shareholders for payouts.

• Workers’ rights over profits! Billions for the preservation of our jobs instead of for even more pomp and glitz for managers and shareholders.

To this end, the division of the workforce according to permanent and temporary employees, locations, car brands and countries must be overcome. VW is a global corporation. Attacks on part of the workforce is an attack on the entire international workforce. We will not allow the plants in Emden, Wolfsburg and Zwickau to be played off against each other. And we will not allow the unions to drive a wedge between us and the workforces in China, Mexico, the US, the Czech Republic or Spain. The colleagues there are our allies.

For the same reason, we refuse to label migrants as scapegoats for the current situation. It is not our foreign colleagues who destroy our jobs, but the management on behalf of the shareholders. It is not people fleeing war and poverty who are cutting billions in spending on education, health and social services in order to invest in rearmament and war, but the German federal government of the SPD (Social Democrats), Greens and FDP (Free Democrats).

The onslaught at VW is an expression of the capitalist crisis and part of a global offensive by the corporations and their henchmen in the governments. With trade war and war, they are fighting a bitter battle for geopolitical power, market share and higher returns. Hundreds of billions of euros are being spent on rearmament, as well as on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and there is not to be a penny left for us.

The fight to defend jobs, wages and social standards is therefore inextricably linked to the fight against war and military rearmament.

This battle must be fought internationally. In every country, workers are subjected to the same widespread attacks. Rank-and-file committees have already been established at many companies and across sectors worldwide, in the automotive industry and most recently at Boeing in the US. Since Friday, 13 September, 33,000 workers have been on strike there—against the will of their union, which wanted to send them back to work with a shabby collective agreement. The employees rejected this contract by a large majority.

• For the International Workers’ Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees!

All colleagues who agree: Join us. Set up a rank-and-file committee with colleagues in your factory and at your location and contact us—via Whatsapp or register directly via the form below.

With greetings of solidarity,

VW Rank-and-File Committee