Friday April 18, 06:37 PM
German union at VW vows to pursue legal battle against Porsche: report
BERLIN (AFP) - German trade union IG Metall vowed Friday to challenge luxury sports car maker Porsche (Xetra: 693773 - news) again should it take over Volkswagen (Xetra: 766400 - news) , the biggest European carmaker, a press report said.
"We are going to do all we can to protect the co-management rights of Volkswagen staff ... If Porsche raises its holding of almost 31 percent to more than 50 percent, we will file a new complaint," IG Metall representative Bernd Osterloh told the left-of-center Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper.
The union, which represents more than 90 percent of VW workers, has already filed a legal procedure against Porsche and the holding company it set up to eventually oversee both auto companies.
VW staff object to a plan that would give them the same number of seats as Porsche workers on the holding company's supervisory board even though the personnel ratio is nearly 30 to one.
Porsche has indicated it plans to take a majority holding in VW at some point and is already battling to change company statutes that give VW's home state of Lower Saxony a virtual blocking minority with its holding of just over 20 percent.
A German law rejected in October by a European court requires that strategic decisions such as factory relocations be approved by at least 80 percent of the shareholders.
"For now, relations are frozen" with Wendelin Wiedeking, the boss at Porsche, Osterloh said, adding that his union backed the government's efforts to draft a new "VW Law."
"We want a new VW Law and a major shareholder like the regional state of Lower Saxony," he said.
Such legislation would guarantee a "reasonable balance between a race for profits and job protection."
The German government is mulling an amended bill that would preserve Lower Saxony's leverage and the issue is slated for discussion at a general assembly of VW shareholders on April 24 that is shaping up as a lively affair between workers and Porsche representatives.
An IG Metall spokesman said the union would hold a demonstration on a public square in the northern port of Hamburg across from where the meeting was to take place, with between 1,000-1,200 workers from different VW sites expected to attend.
"The aim is to draw attention to the situation at VW and call for a new VW law that maintains the blocking minority clause," he told AFP.
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