Are Volkswagen Group’s unions fighting for jobs - or making the future unaffordable for the next generation?

IG Metall is mobilising across VW sites in Germany while deeper restructuring is being discussed.

I understand why unions defend workers. That is their role.

But there is a difference between defending people and defending structures that may no longer create future work.

Volkswagen is not facing a normal downturn. It is facing a structural challenge: China, software, battery cost, weak margins, overcapacity and a German cost base that no longer fits the market.

In that situation, making every reduction harder and more expensive may look like social justice.

Economically, it can become a transfer from the next generation to the current one.

Every euro used to make the old structure harder to change is a euro not used for new products, software, batteries, affordable platforms, autonomous driving or new roles for younger employees.

At last week’s Reuters Events: Automotive Europe conference in Frankfurt, many people still seemed to believe European OEMs are in a good position to fight back.

I found that confidence worrying.

Not because European OEMs have no strengths. They do.

But because incumbents often look strongest shortly before the market changes faster than they can.

Nokia is the obvious warning. People inside saw the challenge. The problem was not awareness. The problem was whether the organization could move fast enough while it still believed it was strong.

That is the risk for European automotive now.

The real fight should not be to make the past impossible to leave.

It should be to build the industrial foundation for the next generation of jobs.

If Europe turns restructuring into trench warfare, the market will do the restructuring for us.

And the market will be far less sentimental.