Volkswagen CEO suggests longer working hours in Germany to cut costs
Blume suggested a number of options to cut labour costs, including cutting holidays to increasing annual working hours, or increasing weekly working hours without any compensation in pay.
25 replies
Overtime isn't anything new? You get paid more by hour and it's not mandatory
After decades of keeping wages low to the point where we have a low 2-digit percentage in real wage increases in the same time frame that saw +250% real economic output per capita...
And at a time when the German economy suffers from low domestic demand in particular, caused by low disposable income...
They know how to improve the economy: by lowering wages
Fuck off to your alternative reality where "the economy" is synonymous with the insane wealth increases of the upper <1% at the expense of everyone else!
The CEO is not going to get his new yacht if everyone has your attitude.
Well... I have a solution:
When –after all the decades of neoliberal brain-washing– people with this attitude still exist those CEOs should probably just give up and try something new... 😅
German neoliberals (which most CEOs of our larger corporations are) and empirical data don't really mesh well. It's why most of them still clutch the neoclassical "school" of economics, which has zero empirical data behind its basic assumptions.
If only there was a mechanism for new companies to challenge and outcompete dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the regulatory capture emerging from capitalism and explicitly supported by our electorate means barriers of entry are drawn such that it's almost impossible to challenge entrenched wealth, unless being backed by rival entities of comparable wealth.
A tall order from some leech who hasn't done any productive work in all his life while making millions from other people's work.
I have another suggestion: cut the salaries of CEOs and other executives. This would also reduce costs and without sacrificing production capacity.
Best we can do is use softer whips.
All I ever hear from Volkswagen is mass layoffs. Asking for longer work hours is bad already but with this background it‘s pure evil. They‘re evil and if they can only stay competitive being evil they‘re a net negative for society and should just disappear.
Volkswagen can crash and burn what all I care anymore. Bad for the actual people that do the work sure, but we can't support the lifestyle of those CEOs anymore!
I'd like it better if the workers overthrew those managers and CEOs and took control of the production themselves. That would also lower the cost as those managers take hundreds of millions of Euros every year and give billions to investors who don't even produce anything at all.
Or he could drop dead
Years of mismanagement made him do this! With the good numbers he singlehandedly will create he will get a bonus so big half of what is created can get to the management!
LMAO! Coming back to nazi roots? Does this dude want to find a group of people to force to work for free ?
Tax this fucking guy's wealth. He's way too cozy in his damn ivory tower. #TaxWealthNotWork
sure my dude, go ahead, work longer hours
Let's hope they don't introduce China's 996 working culture as its Chinese rivals do ...
Don't give German CEOs and politicians any ideas.
Before you all grab your forks and pitchforks, keep in mind that in Germany a workday is 7 hours (now you can grab 'em).
Even if it was less... No pay for extra work is no pay for extra work. No matter how long the work was initially.
It's 8. Although in some industries unions brought that down to 7 (as is the case here)
And what does that matter?
Well...
The company was literally created by the nazis...
And how is that relevant?
What was the motto on concentration camps?
Do you not see how that phrase would be relevant to:
Like, I'd thank you for asking a question to learn what you didn't know, but it seems like you were asking rhetorically because you couldn't image there was a valid connection...
The connection is so superficial, there's really no line you could draw to compare the crimes of the nazis to the negotiation tactics of a greedy CEO. In doing so you are trivializing heinous crimes against humanity.