It would seem that Volkswagen employees aren’t the only German workers worried about what the EV transition will mean for them. Bosch employees across the country protested in the face of looming job cuts.
According to the IG Metall union, around 3000 workers at Europe’s largest auto part manufacturer launched a protest at the Bosch plan in Buehl. They were joined by strikes at the company’s Munich and Arnstadt plants.
All three plants are on the receiving end of hefty job losses. The Buehl plant will see 1,000 workers made redundant by 2025 as a result of relocations, cuts, or new hires. The Arnstadt plant employs 100 workers, all of whom may be left without a job — the factory makes generator regulators, which is a part that will be absent from EVs and is due to close before the end of 2021 due to a lack of demand. And, at Munich, around 250 jobs could be relocated abroad, although no final decision has been made.
Read: EVs Could Save The Planet, But Who’ll Save the ICE-Industry Jobs?
The plans are due to the global shift towards electric vehicle manufacture, with the company stating that it needs to adapt to changing demands. Speaking to Reuters, a spokesperson for Bosch, said: “Our aim is always to design measures in dialogue with social representatives with the aim of exhausting all opportunities for continued employment… while also pointing towards opportunities for new employment outside the company.”
But Frank Sell, head of the works council for Bosch’s mobility solutions division, stated that “Nobody denies that structural change at Bosch requires great effort. But the transformation must be fair and have workers in focus.”
Earlier this year, Bosch’s CEO, Volkmar Denner, heavily criticized the EU’s plans to effectively kill off the internal combustion engine. At the time, he highlighted the risk that the EU’s EV-focused drive ignores the possibility of resultant unemployment.
