2024 was the worst year for automotive employment in Europe since the financial crisis. In two meetings with the European Commission this week, industriAll Europe stressed the importance of listening to the workers and making good strategic plans for the whole supply chain.
IndustriAll Europe participated in two thematic meetings this week in the context of the EU Strategic Dialogue on Automotive, launched by the European Commission on 30 January.
During the first meeting, which dealt with the clean transition of the sector, co-steered by European Commissioners Wopke Hoekstra and Jessika Roswall, industriAll Europe stressed the need to steer the transition if we don’t want to just watch a scene of disruption.
Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of industriAll Europe, says: “The automotive industry needs a comprehensive industrial strategy that safeguards the whole supply chain. This must be based on a stable regulatory framework that provides certainty for investors as well as for the anticipation of change for workers and their unions. Investment is the cornerstone to boost infrastructure roll-out and support demand, but we too often see austerity plans for public budgets and cost-cutting plans in private companies that undermine demand”.
IndustriAll Europe calls for stimulation packages with strong social conditionalities. Incentives must come with strings attached to ensure that they will also entail co-benefits for keeping jobs and added value in the European automotive industry.
A demand stimulation must also contain a social justice agenda to avoid windfall profits and ensure a right to affordable mobility.
In the thematic meeting dealing with social dimension, chaired by Commissioner Roxana Mînzatu, industriAll Europe pulled the alarm bell regarding the wave of layoffs that was announced in 2024.
Isabelle Barthès, Deputy General Secretary of industriAll Europe says: “Today, the auto sector is bleeding, with massive layoffs, including in parts of the sector that are fully in line with our climate objectives, such as the assembly of battery electric vehicles (Audi Forest) or battery factories (Northvolt). We need a European mechanism, such as a SURE2.0, like we had during the pandemic, to support the safeguarding of jobs and know-how and to prevent the destruction of industrial capacities. We need negotiated plans to protect industrial capacities, to stop the bleeding and to bring stability.”
IndustriAll Europe also demands a strong social chapter in the EU Industrial Action Plan for Automotive, promoting social conditionalities, quality jobs, social dialogue and the right to training.