Christiane Benner, head of the IG Metall trade union, has expressed her openness to the reintroduction of the four-day week at Volkswagen.

"We should leave no stone unturned in order to maintain employment," she said on Thursday. Accordingly, a reduction in working hours could be one of the options. However, the employer side, which has recently rejected shorter working hours, would have to open up for this. Volkswagen had introduced a four-day week in 1994 in response to a sales crisis and thus prevented mass redundancies.

At the same time, IG Metall district manager Thorsten Gröger defended the wage demand of a seven percent increase for VW employees. "The employees are not the cause of the problems the company is now facing." The solution to the problems cannot be to abandon the 20-year principle of making wage demands and agreements at VW in line with the rest of the industry. It is still unclear when negotiations will begin at the car manufacturer. IG Metall has stated that it is open to quick talks. However, management has not yet approached the union.

VW announced on Monday that it would be terminating the employment protection agreement that has been in force for three decades. The company also threatened to close plants. The works council announced determined resistance and accused the management of serious mistakes.

(Report by Christina Amann, edited by Myria Mildenberger. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at Berlin.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or Frankfurt.Newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets)