VW workers in Germany to walk off assembly lines again on Monday

Volkswagen workers plan to launch rolling four-hour strikes on Monday, ratcheting up the pressure on management on the same day that a fourth round of negotiations over pay cuts and factory closures gets under way.

In resistance to the ailing automotive giant's cost-saving plans, workers staged two-hour strikes earlier this week at nine Volkswagen car and component plants in Germany.

In Wolfsburg, the world headquarters of the Volkswagen Group and the site of Monday's negotiations, a protest rally is also planned, Thorsten Gröger of the IG Metall industrial trade union said on Thursday.

"Around 100,000 strikers sent a loud signal to VW's management at the beginning of December," he said of the first strike day on December 2. "We will now follow up on December 9 and increase the pressure on the company at the negotiating table."

The same nine factories in Germany - in Wolfsburg, Zwickau, Hanover, Emden, Kassel-Baunatal, Braunschweig, Salzgitter, Chemnitz and Dresden - are once again affected.

The rolling wave of four-hour strikes will start at the Wolfsburg plant at 10:30 am (0930 GMT), the union said. Two hours later, the fourth round of negotiations starts in the Volkswagen Arena in the city.

Volkswagen chief executive Oliver Blume on Wednesday defended the proposed cost-cutting programme, which includes slashing wages, closing plants and enforcing redundancies. He called the situation "serious" and said that "urgent measures are needed."