An ‘earthquake’ at Volkswagen – and a crisis for Germany?

The company is seen as crucial not just to local but national wellbeing – and never before have its workers been threatened in their own homeland like this

‘Earthquake at Volkswagen” ran the stark headline in the Wolfsburger Nachrichten, the newspaper serving the north German city that is synonymous with the carmaker.

The news that the crisis-stricken company was weighing up the closure of factories in Germany for the first time in its history, and prematurely dissolving its 30-year-old employment protection agreement as part of an attempt to save around €10bn (£8.4bn), had barely filtered through to the workers emerging from Gate 17 at VW’s main factory in Wolfsburg on Monday, where a lone reporter had been dispatched to capture reaction at shift’s end.

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