At the Volkswagen plant in Kaluga, more than 30% of employees resigned

1.3 thousand employees, or more than 30 percent of the total workforce, have resigned from the former Volkswagen automobile plant in Kaluga, which came under the control of a Russian legal entity, reports The Moscow Times.

The publication, with reference to the trade union of the enterprise, notes that the administration is forcing the employees to resign, making the working conditions unfavorable. In particular, according to the members of the trade union, the administration canceled the delivery of employees by transport to the workplace and obliged them to “wait out” downtime at the plant, while significantly reducing their pay.

“They say at the factory that the German equipment in the workshops is being cut up with grinders, and the vacated areas are being used as warehouses for Chinese-made cars. Thus, workplaces, equipment and technologies inherited from Volkswagen are being destroyed,” writes The Moscow Times. There were no comments from the plant administration.

Earlier, the Arbitration Court of the Nizhny Novgorod region seized the assets of Volkswagen in the case of GAZ. The domestic car manufacturer demands to recover 15.6 billion rubles of losses from the German concern, which has left the Russian market, after the termination of the agreement on the assembly of cars in Nizhny Novgorod.

• Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 46 out of 60 automobile brands have left the Russian market. Almost all European, American and Korean manufacturers have stopped supplying cars and spare parts. In response, the Ministry of Industry and Trade allowed their “parallel import”, that is, import into the country without the permission of the right holder, but its volumes are small and cannot cover demand. In total, after the start of the full-scale war, more than 1,200 international brands, companies and organizations closed their operations in Russia.