The Trade Union Association of Bohemia, Moravia & Silesia expresses its strong solidarity and support for the workers and other employees of the Volkswagen Group.
The approved Plan of the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group of September 3, 2026, envisages a cut of 50 thousand jobs by the end of the decade. Together with the already agreed elimination of 50 thousand jobs, this means a total elimination of 100 thousand jobs and corresponds to 15 per cent of the total number of jobs in the Group. Although the profit before tax reached € 8.9 billion euros, the Group’s management is defending itself with the need to restructure the Group, the need to increase its competitiveness.
The Volkswagen Group had already closed its plant in Dresden in 2025. Now the future of the plants in Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and Neckarsulm is at risk. More broadly, production of the Seat brand in Spain is to be terminated.
The conversion of the plant in Osnabrück into a plant producing components for missile systems in cooperation with the Israeli state arms company Rafael is another tragic piece of this mosaic.
According to the company’s statement, the Škoda plant in Mladá Boleslav in the Czech Republic is not to be “directly” affected by the restructuring of the group. Nevertheless, there is talk of limiting the company’s own development at the Škoda PLC plant and increasing the share of components from other factories of the group and from China. The production of the popular Škoda Fabia brand is also at risk. Thanks to the interconnectedness and dependence of the Czech economy on Germany, the layoffs and closures of the Volkswagen Group’s production plants in Germany will have a significant negative impact on production in the Czech Republic.
The fight of workers and other employees of the Volkswagen Group against the brutal restructuring is also a fight for the Škoda PLC plant and a number of companies in the Czech Republic producing for the Volkswagen Group.
It is a fight to reject hard capitalist interests, determined only by the value of private profit for the controlling shareholders of the concern. It is a fight for human dignity.
The Trade Union Association of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia stands firmly on the side of the workers and other employees of the Volkswagen concern and for the employees of Mlada Boleslav’s Škoda PLC.
In Prague, September 4, 2026.
Trade Union Association of Bohemia, Moravia & Silesia
Czech Republic
