Introduction

Maximise performance and productivity — optimise job security. This was the underlying objective of the 1995 round of collective bargaining at Volkswagen. It was an extension of the idea first introduced in 1993 with the 4-day week and described in the book “Every Job has a Face”. How can one raise productivity and yet secure jobs, improve performance and yet assure levels of pay, enhance competitiveness and yet still retain expensive manufacturing locations? Once again, the question was directed towards the same 100,000 people who, in 1993, had opted for secure jobs and a 4-day week. So this time it was possible to draw on people’s experience with that first experiment — was such an approach feasible in a sector which faces some of the fiercest global competition of any industry and bears such a heavy burden of high social standards as that in Germany?