FRANKFURT (AFP) - Volkswagen again threatened to move jobs abroad as management sat down with unions to resume wage talks at a time when Europe's biggest car maker is seeking to impose controversial and painful cost cuts on its workforce.
As wage talks resumed, VW's chief negotiator Josef-Fidelis Senn told unions that "new models and components will no longer be built in Germany if (unions) do not agree to modifications in the wage structure," a spokesman for the powerful IG Metall labour union said.
"It was a relatively massive threat issued to us. We cannot accept this threat," the spokesman said.
Faced with falling sales, VW wants a wage-freeze for its 103,000 production employees in Germany and increased flexibility of working hours.
IG Metall for its part is demanding a four-percent pay increase and job guarantees for 10 years.
"It's not about merely boxing things through. What we want is to secure jobs in Germany," VW chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder told the regional daily Berliner Zeitung in an interview published Tuesday.
"That is vital if the relocation of labour abroad is not to increase," Pischetsrieder added.
VW management had previously issued a veiled threat to relocate jobs abroad or increase production outside of Germany if it failed to push through substantial cost-cutting plans aimed at reducing production costs by 30 percent by 2011.
VW has substantial manufacturing capacity in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Mexico and Brazil.
A similar tactic was used recently by German-US rival DaimlerChrysler to persuade its workforce to agree to tough belt-tightening measures.
VW management and unions returned to the negotiating table on Tuesday in on-going wage talks following a two-week break.
With both sides taking an increasingly confrontational stance, the powerful IG Metall labour union did not rule out calling for work stoppages or even an all-out strike.
VW chairman Pischetsrieder, however, appeared conciliatory.
"Neither side is interested in a strike. Both sides will do everything they can to reach a peaceful agreememt," he said.
For IG Metall, the key issue was job security, the union spokesman said.
"We want job security in Germany for the employees. We are prepared to discuss the conditions in order to get job security," the spokesman said.