Support for sister union


The Bavarian region of Germany’s largest union, IG Metall, has expressed its support for the Slovak union OZ KOVO in a dispute with a breakaway union it considers to be a company union. 


Many workers in the Volkswagen plant in Bratislava, the Slovak capital, have left OZ KOVO — which represents metalworkers across Slovakia — to join a new union based just at Volkswagen. 


Zoroslav Smolinský, leader of the new union and previously head of OZ KOVO at the plant, claims that his organisation now represents 6,000 of the 11,000 employees. 


Jürgen Wechsler, regional secretary of IG Metall, called on Bratislava workers to re-join OZ KOVO.


"Company unions promote competition between unions and employees," he said. "It is the workers who are always the losers.”