BRUSSELS (AFX) - Unions at the Volkswagen AG plant in Brussels, which is undergoing restructuring involving job cuts, have refused to return to work on Monday, according to a union source.
'It is impossible to go back on Monday, we need more guarantees on the redundancies, the pension arrangements, as well as on operations in 2007-8', said Manuel Castro, representative of the FGTB union.
Management, however, reiterated that it was 'imperative to resume production of cars next week'.
The plant currently employs 5,200 permanent and about 170 temporary workers. But VW has decided to transfer production of Golf cars to Germany, and probably to start producing the new Audi A1 in Brussels from 2009, which would enable 3,000 jobs to be retained.
Yesterday afternoon, the unions met again with management, but after this meeting, were still far apart.
After the meeting, management announced that the factory 'would be able to produce about 46,000 Polo cars and at least 14,000 Golf cars in 2007'. This would allow VW to 'guarantee more than 2,000 jobs on the site until 2009'. The remaining 1,000 employees would be either temporarily laid off or in training.
Besides this, management said that a third model, still to be decided on, could be assembled in Brussels from 2007.
Today, the unions affirmed that the production figures had not been brought up during the meeting, and were questioning VW's communications strategy.
Also, while management said the unions were trying to renegotiate the rise in their redundancy payments, already three or four times higher than the Belgian average, the unions said they were simply asking for seniority of workers to be taken into account.
New talks between management and unions are expected to start on Monday.
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