Volkswagen’s boss takes on the unions

FIVE YEARS ago the Porsche and Piëch families, who control just over half of Volkswagen’s voting rights, poached Herbert Diess from BMW, a posh Bavarian carmaker. He was hired to run VW, the biggest by far of the the group’s 12 marques, because of his reputation as a cost-cutter and hard-nosed manager who would not shy away from taking on the unions. Untainted by VW’s “Dieselgate” emissions scandal, he made a good start by improving its poor profit margins. In 2018 he was rewarded with the job of running the entire group.

Only two years later the dynamic Bavarian’s job is on the line after a series of clashes with organised labour. In June Mr Diess almost got the boot because of a dust-up with the supervisory board over a leak of confidential information about the group’s software failings. He alleged it might have come from the board’s union representatives. After that he was relieved of his job as boss of vw (which he had kept).

This time the clash is more serious still. On December 1st the executive committee of the group’s 20-member supervisory board, the non-executive conclave that holds management to account, met to discuss his request for an extension of his contract. The current one runs to 2023, so extending it now would constitute a vote of confidence. No decision has been made public. The whole board will...