After more than 20 hours of negotiations that went on through the night, VW said it had settled its differences with CarTrim, which makes seats, and ES Automobilguss, which produces cast iron parts needed to make gearboxes, but gave no further details.
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But it now seems all parties came to an agreement on Tuesday morning, with VW stating that the suppliers had agreed to start delivering parts again and the affected plants would gradually resume production.
A member of Volkswagen’s supervisory board is calling for a quick solution to a legal dispute between the automaker and two suppliers that has forced VW to suspend production of some models at German plants, affecting almost 28,000 workers.
“The affected sites are preparing step-by-step to resume production”, VW said in a statement. But they refused, saying that VW had cancelled future contracts without providing adequate compensation.
VW expects production of its Golf and Passat models in Germany to be back to normal by Monday following a compromise which will see the suppliers, both part of Bosnia’s Prevent group, work with VW for at least another six years.
Europe’s largest carmaker and the two suppliers on Tuesday resolved a dispute affecting 28,000 workers at six of VW’s 10 German factories.
Analysts at Commerzbank estimated the stoppage could cost the firm $79 million a week.
The root of the conflict stemmed from Volkswagen cancelling contracts from suppliers CarTrim and ES Automobilguss.
“Our colleagues want to build cars and not sit at home with nothing to do”, he said.
A spokesman for Prevent, the two suppliers’ parent company, told business daily Handelsblatt on Friday that VW was imposing “unacceptable conditions” on its suppliers.
But Professor Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of the University of Duisburg-Essen said that “the real reason for this farce is in VW’s purchasing system”.
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VW is still in the throes of its biggest crisis after it admitted in September 2015 to a emissions cheating scandal.
