VW’s surprise job-slashing deal is a big win for its bosses

学习目标

• 梳理管理层、员工代表与下萨克森州之间的权力关系，解释协议为何是管理层的胜利。
• 掌握 far from、only when、介词 + which 等 8 个关键结构，并在新语境中迁移。
• 区分“争取到调整时间”和“已经解决问题”，用证据评价共同决策制的韧性与局限。

The casual observer might interpret the agreement on September 3rd between Volkswagen’s management and trade unions as Mitbestimmung (co-determination) in action. In fact, far from epitomising the long-standing German model of harmonious accord between bosses and employees, the unexpected deal, which involves the loss of 50,000 jobs, may signal the beginning of its end. The carmaker’s powerful unions and employees’ representatives agreed to it only when the bosses threatened to bypass the system altogether.

乍看之下，普通观察者可能会把9月3日大众汽车管理层与工会达成的协议，理解为德国“共同决策制”（Mitbestimmung）正在发挥作用。 事实上，这份意外达成、涉及削减5万个岗位的协议，远非德国长期以来资方与员工和谐协商模式的典型体现，反而可能标志着这一模式开始走向终结。 大众强大的工会和员工代表，只有在管理层威胁要彻底绕过这一制度后才同意该协议。

Workers hold a strong hand on VW’s 20-strong supervisory board, which is empowered to approve strategic action. Their representatives hold ten seats. Another two are occupied by VW’s home state of Lower Saxony. The state has a 20% voting stake in the firm and—under the Volkswagen Act, a law passed in 1960—can veto decisions of which it disapproves. Both have been determined to preserve jobs in Germany. In recent years management has been determined to cut them and the exorbitant costs they entail.

员工在大众由20人组成的监事会中握有一手强牌。该监事会有权批准战略行动。 其中十个席位由员工代表占据。 另有两个席位属于大众所在地的下萨克森州。 该州持有大众20%的投票权，而且依据1960年通过的《大众汽车法》，可以否决自己不赞成的决定。 工会和下萨克森州长期都决心保住德国本土岗位。 近几年，管理层却同样坚决地希望削减这些岗位，以及它们所带来的高昂成本。

Approval of “Future Plan 2030” opens the way for factory closures in Germany. The job cuts are on top of the same number culled under a deal struck in 2024. The latest pact was secured only after it appeared that VW’s bosses had threatened to circumvent the supervisory board and appeal directly to shareholders—a nuclear option to which they had never before resorted. A rumour that VW was considering phasing out its SEAT brand may have added to the pressure.

“未来计划2030”获批，为大众关闭德国工厂打开了道路。 本次削减5万个岗位，是在2024年协议安排削减同等数量岗位之外的追加削减。 最新协议之所以能够达成，只是在大众管理层似乎已经威胁要绕过监事会、直接诉诸股东之后——这是一种他们从未使用过的“核选项”。 关于大众正在考虑逐步淘汰 SEAT 品牌的传闻，也可能进一步增加了压力。

Trashing co-determination, of which VW has long been considered the exemplar, is a measure of managers’ desperation. In past decades, when the German firm vied with Toyota for leadership of the global car industry, profitability came a poor second in importance to scale. And when other European carmakers shifted production to lower-cost countries in eastern Europe, unions hindered VW’s ability to do the same. They are said to have insisted that every job created abroad be matched by one in Germany.

大众长期被视为共同决策制的典范，如今管理层却准备把这一制度撕开一道口子，足见其已经多么焦急。 过去几十年，当这家德国企业与丰田争夺全球汽车业领导地位时，相比企业规模，盈利能力的重要性只能远远排在第二位。 其他欧洲车企把生产转移到成本更低的东欧国家时，工会又限制了大众采取同样行动的能力。 据说工会曾坚持，大众每在海外创造一个岗位，就必须在德国本土增加一个岗位。

VW’s over-reliance on costly German workers and factories became first a problem and then a crisis. Since 2019 annual sales have slipped by 2m vehicles, to around 9m in 2025, as competition from Chinese carmakers has swiftly intensified both in China and abroad. Herbert Diess, VW’s previous boss, an outsider employed in part to take on the unions and cut costs, made little impression. Oliver Blume, an insider who took over in September 2022, was expected to make even less progress.

大众对昂贵的德国员工和工厂过度依赖，最初只是问题，随后演变成危机。 自2019年以来，大众年销量已经减少约200万辆，2025年降至约900万辆；与此同时，中国车企无论在中国本土还是海外都迅速加剧了竞争。 大众前任掌门人赫伯特·迪斯是从外部引进的，其中一个目的就是对抗工会并削减成本，但他并没有取得多少成效。 2022年9月接任的奥利弗·布鲁梅则是内部人士，外界原本预计他的进展只会更小。

Now Mr Blume seems to have pulled off the biggest achievement of his career. The agreement appears to close what Bernstein, a broker, had said looked like an “unbridgeable gap” between management and workers. The most contentious part involves closing four factories in Germany between 2031 and 2034 to reduce annual capacity by 500,000 units (or finding alternative uses for the plants, which seems unlikely). VW will also narrow and simplify its line-up of vehicles and cut capital investment and its research-and-development budget by even more than previously planned.

如今，布鲁梅似乎完成了职业生涯中最重要的一项成就。 这份协议似乎弥合了经纪商伯恩斯坦此前所称的、管理层与员工之间“无法跨越的鸿沟”。 最具争议的一部分，是涉及在2031年至2034年间关闭四家德国工厂的安排，使年产能减少50万辆；另一种可能是为这些工厂寻找其他用途，但看来希望渺茫。 大众还将缩减并简化车型阵容，并进一步削减资本开支和研发预算，幅度甚至超过此前计划。

Mr Blume has thus won VW time to turn itself around. Investors seem to agree: VW’s share price surged early on September 4th. But it is time that he must make the most of. VW has a target of 9% for its operating margin in 2030, compared with less than 4% now, and still has plenty of problems to surmount if it is to come close.

因此，布鲁梅为大众争取到了扭转局面的时间。 投资者似乎也认同这一点：9月4日早盘，大众股价大涨。 但这段时间必须被充分利用。 大众的目标是在2030年把营业利润率提高到9%，而目前还不到4%；若想接近这一目标，它仍有大量问题需要克服。

Although its electric vehicles (EVs) are improving, its earlier forays were hardly met with widespread acclaim. Big investments in in-house software development have yielded little; VW now relies on Rivian, an American startup, and Xpeng, a Chinese one, for such technology. Plans for the sort of software-defined vehicle platform common among Chinese firms are years behind schedule. That is one reason why VW’s sales in China are still sliding. EVs make up only a small fraction of its business in the country, even though electrified cars account for around three-fifths of the market.

虽然大众的电动车正在改善，但早期尝试很难说得到广泛赞誉。 公司在内部软件研发上投入巨大，却收效甚微；如今这类技术要依赖美国初创企业 Rivian 和中国的小鹏汽车。 大众计划打造中国车企普遍采用的那种“软件定义汽车”平台，但进度已经落后多年。 这也是大众在华销量仍在下滑的一个原因。 尽管电动化汽车约占中国市场的五分之三，但电动车在大众中国业务中只占很小一部分。

A bigger worry may be whether VW’s unions are genuinely committed to change. Already Daniela Cavallo, the chief of VW’s works council (which represents employees), has said: “We’ve given up on no plant and, contrary to media reports, no plant closure has been approved.” In December 2024 VW backed down from a plan to close three German factories after workers went on strike.

更大的担忧或许是，大众工会是否真的愿意接受改变。 大众职工委员会主席丹妮拉·卡瓦洛已经表示：“我们没有放弃任何一家工厂；与媒体报道相反，也没有批准关闭任何工厂。” 2024年12月，工人罢工后，大众就曾从关闭三家德国工厂的计划上退让。

Even so, in threatening to circumvent the supervisory board, Mr Blume has found a powerful weapon with which to force concessions. This may be the start of a new era at VW. It could be one of greater co-operation between bosses and workers—or of further industrial strife.

即便如此，布鲁梅通过威胁绕过监事会，已经找到了一件能够迫使对方让步的强大武器。 这或许意味着大众进入了一个新时代。 这个时代可能带来管理层与员工之间更多的合作，也可能带来更加激烈的劳资冲突。

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