The management of the former Volkswagen plant in Kaluga, which came under the control of a Russian company after the German group's withdrawal, is forcing workers to leave the plant en masse. Over the past two months, 1,300 employees – more than 30% of the total workforce – have left the plant under pressure from the administration.
Source. This was reported by The Moscow Times with reference to the company's trade union.
The trade union in its Vkontakte group spoke about "dirty methods of squeezing out staff".
"They canceled the delivery of employees by transport, obliged employees to sit out downtime at the plant, etc. Since July 23, they have significantly reduced downtime pay," the union said.
Currently, about 500 employees remain idle at the plant. "These are people whom the management has identified as unnecessary. They also consider it necessary to squeeze them out of the company," the organization writes.
The plant says that German equipment in the workshops is being "sawed off with grinders," and the vacated areas are being used as warehouses for Chinese-made cars. Thus, jobs, equipment and technologies inherited from Volkswagen are being destroyed.
"I wonder if the Russian government, which approved the deal to sell the plant, planned this kind of development of the enterprise. Was this the kind of "pseudo-import substitution" they were planning? Are these the methods used in our country to fight the sanctions of the collective West?" the trade unions said in a statement.
Volkswagen ceased operations in Russia due to Western sanctions imposed after the invasion of Ukraine. In 2023, the plant was taken over by the Avilon dealer holding. Denis Manturov, the head of the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, said that car production at the former Volkswagen plant could begin by the end of 2023. The company's management promised that it would start assembling several models of foreign cars at once. In particular, they discussed the possibility of producing cars from the Chinese brand Chery.