Volkswagen AG labor representatives warned that the carmaker’s planned cuts could eventually affect as many as 140,000 jobs as management prepares to take its restructuring pitch to workers.Chief Executive Officer Oliver Blume and VW brand chief Thomas Schäfer are due to present their cutback plans at the company’s main Wolfsburg factory on Tuesday. It’s the first of a series of townhall gatherings across Germany in the coming days. While management has outlined cuts that could eliminate as many as 100,000 positions, unionists said that another 40,000 workers may have to go if at-risk factories in Germany are forced to close down — a measure Blume has said is unrealistic this decade.Still, tensions have been running high even before the initial meeting. IG Metall chief Christiane Benner has branded the CEO’s push to slash costs and lift margins to 9% as “cloud cuckoo land.” A local union leader on Monday warned that the group is willing to consider strikes if Blume doesn’t walk back his plans.But the 58-year-old manager has made the overhaul the defining test of his tenure. He wants to reduce costs and remake Volkswagen for an industry upended by electric mobility, software and fast-moving rivals from China. The automaker’s special governance means he cannot simply order the cuts, but needs to bring powerful labor leaders and the state of Lower Saxony, which can veto some major decisions, along with him.“There are many enemies, many veto players and little support,” said Wolfgang Schroeder, a political science professor at Kassel University who has studied German labor relations and Volkswagen.Pressure is also coming from above. Porsche SE, the holding company of the billionaire Porsche-Piëch family that controls Volkswagen, has urged management to move faster, warning that VW is at a “historic crossroads.” The clan has its own reason for urgency: waning profits at Volkswagen and sports-car maker Porsche AG are minimising the dividends it’s long relied on.Volkswagen’s earnings have been battered by declining sales in China, high expenses in Germany and underused factories. That’s leaving the company with a roughly 30% cost disadvantage to some rivals and at least €10 billion of overhead to strip out. Management is working on plans to cut another 500,000 vehicles from annual European production capacity, thin managerial ranks and slash the number of models and equipment variants.This week, Blume is taking his argument directly to the factory floor: while he and Schäfer appear in Wolfsburg, senior executives including Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz will fan out across Volkswagen’s German plants to argue that deeper cuts are unavoidable.Workers have already agreed to tens of thousands of job reductions, only to be told more is needed. Labor leaders say employees are being asked to pay for years of strategic mistakes on software, EVs and China. Management needs to deliver future job perspectives for workers at all German plants, the company’s top labor official Daniela Cavallo said late Monday in Hanover.Labor’s calculation for the potential job losses includes roughly 50,000 reductions already agreed in Germany, another 50,000 positions management has indicated may be needed globally, and about 40,000 jobs at four German plants that have an uncertain longer-term future.Blume rose to the top in part because he was seen as a conciliator capable of navigating Volkswagen’s rival power centers. His future may now depend on whether he can persuade them to accept decisions they have vowed to resist.The CEO faces a “mammoth task,” said Ingo Speich, head of sustainability and corporate governance at Deka Investment.More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comPublished on August 25, 2026