Volkswagen

[Note: The following article was originally written some months ago and was intended for circulation within our IBEW local union. This article, in addition to several completely apolitical articles we devoted to that project, were ultimately scrapped. The circulation of this particular article was unlikely anyway due to anticommunism being written into the IBEW constitution, something which also informed how we wrote this particular article. We have decided, however, to publish it here as even more supplemental material for our polemic against Graham Platner, as it serves as a recent concrete example of the working class’ international nature. We also apologize in advance for getting too carried away with writing flowery prose, which borders on plagiaristic, in the first few paragraphs. — Bluebird, October 2025]

It is often stated that history repeats itself, sometimes accompanied by the maxim first as tragedy, then as farce. People, who are so often unconscious of the of the moment in which they find themselves, repeat the same tired motions, the constant push and pull of trial and error, progressing by the smallest increments until a critical mass of experience has been accumulated and society is able to rupture from the old status quo, resulting in something that did not exist before.

These vignettes are the material of daily existence. The ideas, slogans, and tools of the past are daily rediscovered and put to use in new historical epochs to articulate visions of the future; first by individuals, then by collectives.

What revelations have these latest reenactments furnished for us?

Of particular note to us are the events in Germany in December of 2024, wherein workers from IG Metall, Germany’s largest metalworkers union, went on strike at nine Volkswagen factories in response to the company announcing impending layoffs and wage decreases.1

As companies always do, Volkswagen claims that these cuts are necessary to remain competitive. Indeed, Volkswagen’s expenditures on labor are much higher than its competitors,2 but it doesn’t follow that cuts to the labor force are the solution. Executives will simply never consider cutting their own compensation as a means of staying competitive; they’re too entitled for that.

None of this is remarkable though. More context is necessary to grasp the significance of this strike.

A particularly noteworthy episode transpired at Volkswagen’s largest factory in Wolfsburg Germany. During a meeting in which he consistently dismissed the demands of the workers, Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume instead tried to appeal to the workers on the grounds that he grew up in Wolfsburg and holds the town dear.3 Of course, such platitudes will never convince workers when spoken in the same breath as declarations of impending layoffs, and the Volkswagen workers were not duped.

Before we discuss the results of the strikes in Germany, we would like to turn our attention to another labor struggle involving Volkswagen, this time in Chattanooga Tennessee, where American Volkswagen workers, with the help of the United Auto Workers (UAW), voted to unionize what had been the only non-unionized Volkswagen plant in the world.4 The UAW unionization effort in Chattanooga came on the heels of major wins by the UAW against the “Big 3” US automakers (General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis), during the so-called “year of strikes” in 2023.5

In all of these labor struggles, the fundamental dispute remains the same: capitalists/businessmen want to pay workers as little as possible to maximize their profits. But workers who are paid too little will be pushed out of their jobs. And since production requires workers but not capitalists, workers can leverage their importance in order to prevent the worst excesses of capitalist exploitation—provided that the workers are sufficiently organized.

What these labor struggles serve to illustrate, above all else, is the truly international character of the working class. These struggles reaffirm that old slogan of 1848 that “the working men have no country.” Wherever workers and capitalists confront each other, they cannot help but do so as adversaries. The capitalist’s profits are always made by paying the workers less than the value of what the workers produce. They (profits) are stolen value. This remains the case whether the workers and capitalists in question are from different countries, the same country, or even the same town. The UAW realized this, which is why they released a statement on instagram saying that they support the struggle of the workers in IG Metall.

Militant unionism is not always enough however. In the case of the German Volkswagen strikes, the workers did eventually accept a contract that allowed for the cutting of 35,000 jobs. IG Metall itself called the deal a victory for the workers because it kept all the factories open,6 but we lament that it came at such a great cost to the workers and comparably little cost for the capitalists. We eagerly await the day when enough workers awake from their slumber and realize that they do not need to compromise with their exploiters, when they realize that all the productive forces of society require is workers and not capitalists. On that day, the struggle between labor and capital will be settled once and for all and unions themselves will be rendered obsolete.

Bluebird,

October, 2025