VW threatens to sack Brazil workers

By Steve Kingstone
BBC correspondent in Sao Paulo

A war of words has broken out between workers at a Brazilian car plant and their bosses at Volkswagen in Germany.

Falling sales have caused job cuts

The dispute centres on plans by the German company to cut 4,000 jobs in Sao Paulo as part of a cost-saving exercise.

Trade unions in Brazil are threatening industrial action.

But now Volkswagen's global president has said he will sack any Brazilian employee who goes on strike.

Bernd Pischetsrieder told reporters in Germany the right to strike was explicitly denied in contracts covering Brazilian workers.

But those comments have drawn a defiant response in Brazil.

The leader of one trade union in Sao Paulo said workers would not give in to alarmist threats from Germany.

He warned that Volkswagen employees were ready to go on strike at the first sign of changes to working practices.

Redundancies

The company is having a turbulent year in Brazil. It had hoped to make 750,000 cars here in 2003 but with sales down, it is instead having to cut costs.

Four-thousand production line jobs are to be shed at two Volkswagen plants in Sao Paulo.

The company has pledged to make the cuts through voluntary redundancies and what it says is a generous retraining package.

Trade union leaders were flown to Germany to hear the proposal in person.

But last week it was rejected and the threat of a strike, probably next month, remains very real, whatever the contract lawyers in Germany may say.