To outsiders it looks like a prank, but management is not amused: Audi employees “confiscated” the keys to two hundred cars on Thursday and hid them in the factory. The unions have stated that no cars may leave the factory until their future is clear, now that it has become known that Vorst will not be allocated any new models.
“We have no choice, it is a means of pressure,” says trade unionist Jan Baetens (ACV Metea). “That way, the staff has something up their sleeve to go to the negotiating table. To force the management to come clean. We also had to drag out the news that Brussels will not be getting any new models. The management is hiding behind the so-called ‘planning round’ that was supposed to take place in November, but you can’t leave an entire factory in the dark until then. It is striking that their threat of legal action came by email. It doesn’t feel very official and is not signed by current director Volker Germann,” Baetens adds.
On Sunday evening, however, things came to a complete escalation: the management of Audi Brussels decided not to open the factory on Monday, leaving almost 3,000 employees without pay. “This is a difficult decision for us,” says Peter D’hoore, spokesman for Audi Brussels. After “two and a half weeks of paid exemption from work”, enough is enough. “The company has communicated clearly and shown that it wants to resume activities. As soon as there is the will to work normally again and send cars to the dealers, the factory will open its doors again.”
That decision is a “total declaration of war,” says ACV. But it is clear that the management takes the hidden keys very seriously. According to them, they have camera footage showing the incident. “If we are actually forced to return the keys on Monday, we can no longer guarantee the peace and safety of the factory,” Baetens adds.
Tires on fire
Late Sunday night, about sixty workers gathered at the main entrance and blocked the street, said Sarah Frederickx of the Brussels-South police zone. They set fire to a pile of tires in front of the factory. “The police will ensure that the protest is peaceful. They are looking with the mayor of Vorst to see if a diversion can be provided for traffic around the site.”
On Monday morning, about sixty workers are again at the factory. They are blocking the main entrance to the site on the Brits Tweedelegerlaan. “The situation is calm,” says union representative Ludovic Pineur. About 150 workers showed up with the express wish to go to work, but as announced, they were not allowed in. “It is in everyone’s interest that these people get back to work,” says D’Hoore on Monday morning Radio 1. “They earn money and it gives a positive signal to potential investors. But we have said before that we will only start up again when it is normal and when the keys to those cars are back in our possession. At the moment it makes no sense.”
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Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume writes opinion piece in German Bild
The fact that Audi Vorst is not getting any new models is in all probability part of the general malaise of the Volkswagen Group. This is so serious that CEO Olivier Blume wrote an opinion piece in the German popular newspaper Bild to explain why the company had to close German factories for the first time. “The pie is getting smaller and we have more guests at the table.” He alludes to weak car sales in Europe and Chinese competition, especially in the field of electric vehicles. The situation is “alarming” and requires severe cutbacks. How many of Volkswagen’s 300,000 German employees will be affected is not clear.
Social mediator
Professor of labor law Patrick Humblet states that both parties are on the edge of what is permissible. “The right to strike protects the right to strike, to stop working, but everything beyond that is a gray area. This also applies to taking away or hiding keys. The keys belong to the employer, you don’t need to have studied law to know that this is actually not allowed.”
Audi’s reaction is also telling: they close the factory and send the workers home without pay. “A means of pressure that we haven’t seen much since 1920. They are driving the situation to a head and sowing discord among the workers. In my opinion, Audi is also on the edge of what is permissible. A factory is sometimes closed as a defensive action, for example when there is fighting. But this is an offensive action. I don’t know whether a court will agree with that. It seems to me more useful to appoint a social mediator here.”
And make new car keys?
You would think: the problem would be solved quickly if Audi had new keys made. But it is not that simple, says Thomas Crauwels, lecturer in automotive technology at Thomas More University College. “I do not know what technology they use at Audi, but because of the tape you can only have duplicates made by reading another key. It seems that the workers have hidden all the keys. And even if it could: as a manufacturer you really cannot risk it. With keys in circulation, there is a risk of theft after the sale.”
To be safe, the key modules of all those cars would have to be reprogrammed. This is the electronic equivalent of putting a new lock in a door. “Many of those modules can only be programmed once for safety reasons.” So that’s quite a job.