Germany: Mercedes increases pressure on 40,000 employees to leave the company

K. Nesan

When the Mercedes management board and IG Metall union announced the massive austerity programme “Next Level Performance” in February, Mercedes CEO Ola Källenius and the chair of the group works council, Ergun Lümali, spoke–alongside the usual platitudes about efficiency and performance–of the inevitable reduction in jobs, though they did not mention specific figures. The entire savings process would be fair and socially responsible, they promised.

Mercedes-Benz Sindelfingen [Photo by Cdalkmann / wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4.0]

Shortly thereafter, the company contradicted this. Mercedes sent 40,000 employees a severance offer by email, which, according to internal reports, they would be well advised not to reject. An article that appeared at the end of July in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung under the headline “In the Shaken Mercedes World” provides insight into the pressure and terror exerted by management that is leading to unbearable working conditions within the company.

The intolerable situation is the direct result of the austerity programme devised by management, IG Metall and the works council. It is supposed to save €5 billion over the next three years: €2.5 billion in 2025, €1 billion in 2026 and €1.5 billion in 2027. A significant portion of these savings is to be achieved through job cuts. Källenius and Lümali are also discussing wage reductions and speedups.

It is now clear that almost all the 40,000 employees who received the email are to be forced out of the company. There is no question of the “voluntary approach” that Lümali praises. Even though it is currently claimed that the job cuts only affect “indirect” areas such as administration, development and engineering, and other non-production departments, factory workers with whom the WSWS spoke are worried about the security of their jobs.

The ongoing severance discussions aimed at forcing the 40,000 to leave the company are not being led by direct supervisors but by senior management. The programme will continue until the end of March 2026. Those who resign by the end of July will receive a “turbo bonus.”

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, head of HR Britta Seeger indirectly admitted that massive pressure is being placed on the workforce: “We are trying everything to ensure that employees do not perceive the conversations as pressure.” Nevertheless, one must be very clear about the objectives. The dismissal of 40,000 employees was the “basis for a faster and leaner organisation.”

Group works council chair Lümali also defended this approach. He could understand that some might find the tough conversations “unpleasant.” He assured that if an employee said they had had enough and did not want any further conversations, “this would be respected.”

He justified the job cuts with the following words: “We knew that in such a difficult situation as we are in, the question would arise whether we could maintain the number of jobs. One lever is always the personnel.”

Lümali boasted that IG Metall had achieved the best outcome by securing “at least some predictability for colleagues.” Despite the reduction of 40,000 jobs, he claimed: “The exclusion of compulsory redundancies until 2035 gives us great security.”

With the so-called “exclusion of compulsory redundancies” and alleged “job security,” IG Metall and its works council members always seek to appease workers whenever it is a matter of giving companies a free hand for austerity programmes, redundancies and plant closures.

The IG Metall apparatus acts as the industrial police on behalf of management. It undermines any independent resistance by the workforce through isolation, threats and disciplinary measures. That is why Lümali brushes aside the widespread anger and frustration among workers. “I do not get the impression that our team is frustrated,” he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

The role of the works council was also revealed in March, just weeks after the announcement of “Next Level Performance,” when management ordered office staff back to the workplace despite a company agreement on working from home.

The chair of the Stuttgart Mercedes-Benz headquarters works council, Sabine Winckler, reacted with irritation. But her concern was less about the inadequate workplaces and conditions, which after years of working from home are now increasing pressure on the 40,000 colleagues to leave the company. Rather, she too took to the company intranet to express concern about “industrial peace.” She wrote that Källenius had “undermined social peace and the work culture in the company with a series of questionable decisions.”

The main interest of the union officials is “social peace.” This is to ensure that management can implement one austerity programme after another without being disturbed by the workforce. For maintaining this “social peace,” IG Metall officials sitting on works councils and supervisory boards are handsomely rewarded. Top earners such as Lümali receive mid-six-figure salaries from Mercedes.

But contrary to the claims of the IG Metall apparatus representatives, there is no “final” austerity programme. The next one is already being prepared, as the international tariff and trade war and intensified competition in Asia and America are being waged entirely at the expense of the workforce.

The half-year results announced by Mercedes-Benz last week reflect this brutal global economic war. Sales fell by almost 9 percent to €66.4 billion, and profits declined by more than half compared to the previous year. Analysts stressed that this was a historically negative result for the company in its more than 100-year history. Shareholders reacted immediately. Mercedes shares fell by almost 12 percent over the past five days.

CEO Källenius pledged to “stay the course,” pledging to continue with “rigorous cost management.”

Mercedes is not making losses but, like VW, continues to earn billions. However, profit margins and returns are falling. The consequence would normally be a lower dividend for shareholders such as BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, the Chinese carmakers BAIC and Geely, and the Emirate of Kuwait. But this is not tolerated. The profit interests of shareholders are the sole corporate purpose and take precedence over jobs, working conditions and workers’ livelihoods.

After Volkswagen, Mercedes, Audi, Bosch, Continental, ZF and many other companies have destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers on this basis, several firms are entering the armaments industry. IG Metall and other unions explicitly support this and praise it as the creation of new jobs.

Mercedes is also entering the war economy. In March, the company received a “defence order” from the federal government for the delivery of 4,800 G-Class vehicles. These vehicles, originally developed for military use and codenamed “Wolf,” are to be added to the arsenal of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces). With a unit price of over €124,000, the arms contract is worth around €1.3 billion.

Thus, Mercedes is profiting from the insane rearmament by the federal government and the European Union. The trade unions support this rearmament and defend “their” corporations against international competition. As Jürgen Kerner, deputy chair of IG Metall, emphasised a year and a half ago in a joint position paper by IG Metall, the SPD Economic Forum and the Federal Association of the German Security and Defence Industry (BDSV):

But contrary to what one might think, the Bundeswehr special fund [of €150 billion] does not automatically strengthen domestic industry. On the contrary, it risks being left behind if more and more is purchased overseas and the government does not ensure that German companies carry out maintenance and upgrades. We finally need a military-industrial policy.

Workers are expected to pay for this nationalist war policy not only with their jobs and wages, but also with their lives on the battlefields.

At factory gates, workers have reported to the WSWS about the increased work pressures and tense atmosphere–but only after making sure that the WSWS reporters were not part of IG Metall. They said there was strong resistance to the manoeuvres of the IG Metall works council, which acts as an extension of management and is also perceived as such.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cuts funding for mRNA vaccine grants

Benjamin Mateus

On August 5, the US Department of Health and Human Services announced that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has canceled nearly $500 million in grants and 22 federal contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, effectively halting the government’s investment in one of the most transformative medical technologies of the 21st century. The decision, part of what HHS called a “coordinated wind-down” under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), terminates or restructures dozens of vaccine projects with companies and institutions such as Pfizer, Moderna, Sanofi and Emory University.

According to the communication issued by Kennedy, “We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.”

Kennedy’s statements, in line with his rabid anti-vaccine stance, are patently false and will have potentially lethal consequences as it further undermines the ability for the world to develop targeted vaccines when another epidemic emerges, when time is of the essence for producing these treatments and getting shots in arms.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., speaks after being sworn in as health and human services secretary in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. [AP Photo/Alex Brandon]

The decision has triggered a wave of alarm from scientists and public health leaders. Experts warn that dismantling mRNA development efforts could compromise pandemic preparedness and biomedical progress. Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm called it “the most dangerous decision in public health” he’s seen in five decades, warning that it will slow the rapid vaccine deployment needed in future outbreaks.

2023 Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó, whose work laid the foundation for mRNA technology, said Kennedy’s reasoning was “false based on false information,” and warned that the global scientific progress made in vaccine development has been “tremendously” set back. Former BARDA director Rick Bright likened the decision to “disbanding the fire department because the fire’s out,” calling it a “strategic failure” that could cost lives in the next crisis.

It bears reviewing the critical contributions COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the mRNA vaccines, have made during the ongoing pandemic, which have been estimated to have saved millions of lives globally.

A landmark study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases found that, in just the first year of vaccine rollout (December 2020 to December 2021), vaccines prevented an estimated 14.4 million deaths based on reported COVID-19 fatalities. When factoring in excess mortality, that number rises to 19.8 million, representing a 63 percent reduction in global deaths. These benefits were especially pronounced in countries with widespread vaccine access and high uptake, many of which relied primarily on mRNA vaccines.

In the United States, where mRNA vaccines were the backbone of the national campaign, modeling by the Commonwealth Fund estimated that vaccinations prevented 3.2 million deaths and 18.5 million hospitalizations, while saving the US healthcare system more than $1 trillion in costs. A separate study published in JAMA Network Open found that in the first ten months of vaccine availability that included the Delta wave (from December 2020 through September 2021) COVID-19 vaccines averted approximately 235,000 deaths, 1.6 million hospitalizations and 27 million infections nationwide.

The benefits of mRNA vaccines extended beyond mortality reduction. Clinical trials and real-world data showed they were around 90 to 95 percent effective at preventing symptomatic infection from early variants, and even more effective at preventing severe disease and death. Although protection against infection waned with the emergence of Omicron variants, updated booster formulations helped maintain strong protection against hospitalization. The mRNA platform’s adaptability allowed for rapid updates to vaccine formulations, a feature that will be critical in future pandemic responses.

On the question of vaccine safety, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been one of the most prominent voices spreading disinformation about mRNA vaccines, often aligning himself with anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy theorists. He has falsely claimed that COVID-19 vaccines are “the deadliest vaccine ever made” and has repeatedly suggested—without credible scientific evidence—that they cause widespread harm, including death, infertility and neurological damage. These assertions are not only untrue, but dangerously misleading. In reality, the safety of mRNA vaccines is supported by an unprecedented volume of global data collected over the past five years.

Since their rollout in late 2020, mRNA COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to billions of people worldwide and subjected to the most intensive safety surveillance in the history of medicine. In the United States, federal monitoring systems such as VAERS, V-safe, and the Vaccine Safety Datalink have continuously tracked outcomes in real time. Their findings confirm that the most common side effects—such as sore arms, fatigue, mild fever and headaches—are both predictable and short-lived. Rare adverse events, like myocarditis in young males, have been carefully studied, transparently reported, and found to be far less frequent than serious complications from COVID-19 itself.

Jazlyn Collins, an elementary substitute teacher, waits in line to get the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, Monday, March 15, 2021, at a Seattle Indian Health Board clinic in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

The success of mRNA vaccine technology during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated its power as a flexible and rapid-response platform for developing vaccines against a range of infectious diseases. Unlike traditional vaccines that introduce weakened or inactivated pathogens, mRNA vaccines deliver genetic instructions to the body’s cells, prompting them to produce specific viral proteins that trigger an immune response. This process not only reduces manufacturing timelines but also allows for swift adaptation to emerging health threats. The same scientific foundation that enabled the rapid creation of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines is now being applied to more complex targets, like HIV.

For instance, a recent phase one clinical trial explored the use of mRNA technology in the development of a preventive HIV vaccine. The trial tested two versions of a potential HIV vaccine, one that floated freely and another anchored to cell membranes, to better imitate how the virus appears in the body. The anchored version performed better, prompting stronger immune responses, including the production of protective antibodies and memory cells that help the body recognize and fight the virus. This promising result shows that mRNA vaccine technology can successfully activate key parts of the immune system—an encouraging step forward in the urgent search for an HIV vaccine.

As of 2024, around 40.8 million people globally are living with HIV, with 630,000 AIDS-related deaths recorded last year. The long-standing epidemic continues to disproportionately impact marginalized groups. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the hardest-hit region, especially among women and girls. Socioeconomic factors, like poverty, low education, unstable housing and poor access to healthcare, increase the risk of infection and death, revealing how deeply HIV is linked to inequality.

Political attacks on mRNA vaccines are threatening to derail public health research and undermining the entire healthcare infrastructure. They will have significant long-term consequences for population health as well as threaten the risk of emerging infectious diseases.

Particularly disastrous is the attack on the National Institutes of Health by its new leader, installed by Trump and Kennedy. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has terminated HIV vaccine research programs, including Moderna’s mRNA-based efforts.

That decision was formally announced in late May 2025 and involved halting clinical trials conducted through the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), ending contracts for non-human primate vaccine testing units and implementing grant accounting changes that effectively bar ongoing HIV vaccine research funding. The move was condemned by federal scientists in what has become known as the “Bethesda Declaration.” The statement also criticized the administration’s sweeping cuts to immunization, treatment of long COVID and infectious disease research, arguing that these decisions are rooted in political ideology rather than science.

The impact of canceling the mRNA vaccine contracts will be far-reaching and potentially catastrophic. One must recall that in the first year of the pandemic, before the vaccines had been introduced, low-income working class people in the US were dying at rates five times higher than affluent demographics (72.2 per 100,000 versus 14.6 per 100,000). Globally, low-income individuals, marginalized ethnic minorities, essential workers, migrants, incarcerated people and those facing homelessness faced the harshest outcomes. The COVID pandemic exposed to the fullest the social impact of inequality.

New exposures of far-right activities in Canada’s military and beyond

James Clayton

Multiple revelations over the past few weeks shed further light on the growing activity of the fascist far-right within the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and Canadian society more broadly.

On July 8, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) laid weapons and terrorism-related charges against four men with ties to the Canadian military who led a fascist group they accuse of plotting to organize an anti-government militia and “seize land” near Quebec City. Two of the men, Marc-Aurèle Chabot and Matthew Forbes, are CAF corporals, now suspended from their posts in the “Van Doos” Royal 22nd Army Regiment. Simon Angers-Audet allegedly left the CAF due to his opposition to COVID vaccinations. The fourth person charged in the conspiracy, Raphaël Lagacé, is a decorated former member of the Army’s Cadet training program.

CAF terrorist plotters' training mission [Photo: Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

The authorities, led by Prime Minster Mark Carney and the federal Liberal government, are trying to cover up the significance of this latest exposure of violent far-right extremists in the military. They have refused to forthrightly identify their politics as fascist, claiming the terrorist plotters were merely “anti-authoritarian extremists,” a designation that deliberately conflates left and right-wing opponents. On Wednesday, the three of the four who face terrorism charges—Chabot, Angers-Audet, and Lagacé—were denied bail. However, the public has been denied any further insight into the terror plot, because the bail hearing was subject to a Court-imposed publication ban.

If the government and state apparatus are seeking to prevent a thorough political exposure of the fascist current within the CAF, it is because it would gravely undermine their efforts to massively increase the size and firepower of the military and to make the working class pay for it; and underscore that the fascists enjoy considerable support within the ruling class.

Ottawa Citizen reporter David Pugliese revealed in mid-July the existence of a far-right Facebook group run by soldiers of the CAF’s Ottawa-based Cameron Highlanders regiment in Ottawa that traded in explicitly racist, homophobic and antisemitic content. The group, called the “Blue Hackle Mafia” named after the feather used on the caps of the unit’s highland-dress regimental uniform, was “reported up the chain of command” in December. Yet the Lieutenant General of the Army, Mike Wright, claims he and other members of the top brass only found out about it on June 25, “the day after the Ottawa Citizen sent images from the Facebook group to DND and asked him for comment.”

Wright’s claim of ignorance is not credible. Multiple complaints were logged with various commanding officers, including the Judge Advocate General, but nothing was done. The group had at least 200 members and operated freely on Facebook for 14 years. According to Pugliese, “They have posted images of male soldiers in uniform exposing their genitals, others posing naked with Canadian Forces’ weapons or simulating sexual acts with each other in uniform. Some of the photos were taken at military installations. The Facebook page also includes hateful comments directed towards women, derogatory sexual comments about former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as discussions about raping grandmothers. In other cases, posts disparage both Jews and Muslims.”

The Cameron Highlanders serve as ceremonial honour guards for visiting officials and public events.

On July 18, the CBC and its flagship investigative journalism program, The Fifth Estate, exposed the growing network of fascist “Active Clubs” across the country. These organizations use physical fitness training in parks and private gyms to recruit white racists to train for “a coming race war.”

Their mainly male recruits are drawn directly from the desperate and impoverished layers of the lumpenproletariat and lower middle class who were drawn into the misnamed, fascist “Freedom Convoy.” As the WSWS exposed at the time, the Convoy was supported and promoted by key sections of the Canadian capitalist ruling class; its political representatives, including the federal Conservative Party, its soon to be leader, Pierre Poilievre, and Premiers Doug Ford, and Scott Moe; and enjoyed significant backing from within the police and military.

The fascist group “Diagalon” led by Jeremy MacKenzie, a CAF veteran from the Royal Canadian Regiment who participated in Canada’s criminal neo-colonial occupation of Afghanistan, is one of two known fascist groups building these “Active Clubs.”

Diagalon was among the initial promoters of the Convoy and was active both in the occupation of downtown Ottawa and the Coutts, Alberta, border blockade. CSIS reports on Diagalon’s involvement with the Convoy, submitted as evidence to the Public Inquiry Commission in 2022, remain highly redacted. Poilievre, shook hands with MacKenzie at one of his campaign rallies for the Conservative Party leadership, held after the convoy was dispersed. When he was elected leader, he openly solidarized himself with the campaign of another fascistic veteran, James Topp, in his misnamed “walk for freedom” demanding a halt to basic public health measures to stop the spread of COVID-19.

Canadian Security and Intelligence Service highly redacted assessment of Diagalon during the Convoy. [Photo: CSIS]

Diagalon has created a fascist successor organization, called “Second Sons Canada,” which openly advertises its racist, white supremacist ideology. It is this group which is organizing so-called “Active Clubs.” The group made its first public appearance in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in April 2025, and its fascist nature was clearly evident in the group’s white face masks and messaging.

Second Sons openly attempts to divide the working class on racial lines, and to whip up hatred of immigrant workers: “Our birthright has been stolen from us as we are being pushed out of society, academics and the workforce and replaced by foreigners without any roots or connection to the Canadian people,” a section of the group’s website declares.  They are openly promoting the fascist and antisemitic “Great Replacement Theory,” which holds that “mass immigration” is part of a worldwide “Jewish conspiracy” to replace white workers with non-white workers. The group claims to have chapters in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, and PEI.

Second Sons' rally. Jeremy MacKenzie is the individual without a mask in front. [Photo: Reddit.]

The other group is an openly Nazi formation calling itself “NS-13,” which stands for “Nationalist Aryan Circle,” a coded reference, via the use of numbers (1 for the letter “A,” 3 for the letter “C”) to a large, white racist Texas prison gang responsible for multiple murders.

The group posts images of its members with their heads obscured by the SS symbol the “Totenkopf” or “death’s head.” It is active in Hamilton Ontario, where its members have staged several provocations inciting racial hatred against immigrants. Hamilton, the former centre of Canadian steel production and one of the poorest cities in Canada, has long been an organizing centre for the far-right, which preys upon and recruits from among the most socially backwards and demoralized layers.

The ability of far-right and outright fascist groups to operate with virtual impunity is due to the promotion of their politics by powerful sections of the ruling elite. They enjoy no mass popular support but can make a fraudulent appeal to disoriented and backward sections of the population due to the sabotaging of all opposition to Canadian imperialism’s program of war and austerity by the New Democrats and trade unions.

Through their alliance with the Liberals—the Canadian ruling elite’s traditional party of national government—the unions and NDP have systematically subordinated the working class to right-wing governments enforcing austerity and war. At the same time, they have worked to isolate and sabotage every major working class struggle. By suppressing the working class and ensuring it does not emerge as an independent political force offering its own socialist solution to the ever-deepening social crisis, the labour bureaucrats and social democrats leave the political field clear for reaction and the political dregs of society to come forward.