Volkswagen Navarra, 8th Collective Agreement (B): The Germans are coming

After more than eight months without the negotiating parties managing to reach an agreement, the unions decided to call in their German counterpart to help find a solution and make the parent company aware of why it had not been possible to reach an agreement in Spain. On the other hand, in response to the drawn out nature of the negotiating period, the management from Wolfsburg contacted Patrick and Carlos to find out what was causing the lack of agreement that had continued for several months at the plant in Navarra. Carlos argued that it stemmed from the union representatives' continuous rejection of the proposals put together by his team, who could not manage to gain approval for any of their proposals. The head of human resources for the Volkswagen brand, Martin Rosick, and the representative of IG Metall and general secretary of the VW European and Global Workers' Committee, Frank Patta, were given the job of visiting Navarra on July 23 and 24 to respond to the call from the union representatives and to help resolve the deadlock in the process of negotiating the agreement by facilitating dialogue between the parties. On the afternoon of July 23, all of the union representatives from the plant met with Frank Patta to discuss the demands that the platform had proposed as well as the barriers that had been put up by the management of the company up to that point.