FRANKFURT, Oct 11 (AFP) - Unions turned up the pressure on the management of Volkswagen on Monday, a day before both sides were scheduled to resume difficult wage talks as Europe's biggest car maker hopes to press ahead with controversial and painful cost cuts.
The chief negotiator of the powerful IG Metall labour union Hartmut Meine threatened warning strikes if management did not agree by the end of October to guarantee the jobs of 103,000 production workers at VW's six western German factories.
Faced with falling sales, VW wants a wage-freeze and increased flexibility of working hours for its German factory staff.
IG Metall for its part is demanding a four-percent pay increase and job guarantees for 10 years.
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.
A similar tactic was used recently by German-US rival DaimlerChrysler to persuade its workforce to agree to tough belt-tightening measures.