Germany’s biggest labor union IG Metall has criticized Volkswagen on Thursday for a recent advert deemed racist and other “errors”, over management which had damaged the automaker’s reputation and put jobs at risk.
The IG Metall union, in an open letter to the automaker’s management and supervisory boards, stated it was shocked by the advert for Golf cars, referring it as “one example of a whole chain of management errors”.
Last week the automaker removed an advert posted on its official Instagram page for its Golf cars that it admitted was racist, saying it would investigate how it came about.
IG Metall, the main union for the automaker’s workers in Germany, also highlighted recent software issues that halted delivery of Volkswagen’s Golf 8 model, saying it made “the disaster even worse!”
“This poor public image destroys the customer confidence that has grown over decades and thus endangers our jobs. Moreover, the whole workforce suffers every day from the loss of our company’s reputation,” the union representatives wrote.
Volkswagen’s reputation has been tarnished in the last five years mainly after the emissions scandal where it admitted cheating diesel emissions tests. The scandal has costed the automaker more than 30 billion euros so far.
