One day after the VW works council boss Daniela Cavallo and the chairman of the board Herbert Diess staged their dispute on the open stage in Wolfsburg, the competitor BMW showed an alternative: At the BMW plant in Leipzig, the works council chairman Manfred Schoch stood side by side with the HR manager Ilka on Friday morning Horstmeier to announce in a press conference the agreement on an equalization of working hours in the east.

One spoke of a "historically unique success in the harmonization of working conditions", the other of a "close alliance with the works council" - lived harmony between employees and employers.

Henning Peitsmeier

Business correspondent in Munich.

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The Munich-based car manufacturer is implementing what the collective bargaining parties in the East German metal industry agreed months ago. More than 30 years after German reunification, the 35-hour week is getting closer for a large part of the East German metalworkers. In West Germany the collectively agreed weekly working time has been 35 hours for 25 years, in the East it is 38 hours.

BMW is gradually reducing the weekly working hours in Leipzig by one hour each until the year 2026. With this step-by-step plan, the working hours will be brought into line with those of the Bavarian BMW locations - "with full wages," as Horstmeier added.

The reduction in working hours by three hours a week means one month less work per year, Schoch calculated.

But that's not all, BMW wants to hire 300 additional employees in the same period in order to keep production capacities in Leipzig at the previous level.

Schoch alleges that Diess made glaring management errors

The contrast could hardly be greater to the rival VW, where there is heated argument about possible job cuts at the main plant.

And BMW veteran Schoch, who has seen today's VW boss Diess for many years on the BMW management committee, could not resist a swipe.

He attributed blatant management errors to “dear Mr. Diess” if he had not recognized in time that the VW plant in Wolfsburg also had to be completely converted to electromobility.

At BMW, said Schoch smugly, “all plants have been converted”.

HR manager Horstmeier described the car factory in Leipzig, which was decided on in 2001 and put into operation in 2005, as "a real success story".

At that time, 2300 people were employed at the start, today there are 5300 employees.

Schoch also rejected a discussion about productivity disadvantages compared to the American electrical manufacturer Tesla, as is being carried out at VW. The fact that Tesla will soon be able to produce an electric car in 10 hours is not considered unusual at BMW, as the next generation of vehicles will also come closer to such lead times. In order to maintain the competitiveness of the Saxon location, BMW is planning to expand production for electric drive components and to expand the model to include the fully electric successor to the Mini Countryman.

Around 1100 vehicles in the compact single and double series are currently rolling off the production lines in Leipzig every day.

At the same time, the electric pioneer i3 has been built since 2013.

Countryman production will move to Leipzig in two years.

So far, the Mini has only been built in England and by the Dutch contract manufacturer Nedcar.

In the 35-hour week, VW got ahead of the BMW group.

VW had agreed this in the in-house collective agreements in Saxony and introduced it for the factories in Zwickau, Chemnitz and Dresden.

And for the VW brand Porsche it will start in Leipzig as early as 2025.