Audi workers at the company's powertrain and car production plants in Hungary are threatening to go on strike unless they receive a pay rise of HUF20,000 (USD64) a month. According to a Reuters report, the workers are also making it a condition that the pay rise is backdated to 1 January, and they are also seeking a one-off HUF100,000 bonus. The union representing the plant's 11,400 workers said that it had rejected two sets of proposals that had been tabled by the plant's management. The union says that 7,000 of the plant's workers had signed the proposals and backed the demands for the pay rise tabled.
Significance: The plant currently builds the A3 and TT and the Q3 will be added to the car plant's production lines from 2018, while the powertrain plant manufactures 2 million engines a year for Audi and other VW Group brands. It is therefore a key element in Audi's European production network and is a highly profitable plant as a result of relative low-cost nature of Hungarian production. According to government statistics car sector workers in the country earned an average gross monthly salary of HUF283,936 (EUR904) per month, although Audi's workers are better paid on average. However, the workers will also be aware of this status in comparison to Audi's high-cost German locations and will be hoping to use this knowledge as leverage in any negotiations.
