Shift cancellations at Audi only a misunderstanding?

Date: 12.10.2018

Group leaders communicated shift resolution for employees

The announced cancellation of a shift on the A4/A5 line had caused riots among Audi employees. However, it turned out that this was merely a “misunderstanding” in internal corporate communications. It is not yet clear how things will actually proceed.

According to reports by employees, the group leaders of the assembly department were informed of a shift resolution of “shift 2”, as this was too expensive and unprofitable.

Especially the Audi location Ingolstadt has to struggle with the false report. At the moment there is only the possibility to build exactly these models on the lines A4/A5. The models Q2 and A3 are built on other own lines. With the currently prevailing order fluctuations it comes thereby to problems. At the moment special shifts have to be worked on the lines A3/Q2, while the lines A4/A5 work only very slowly. In the future, therefore, all models should be able to be built on all lines. The first stage will be for the A3 sedan which will be built from January on in Ingolstadt instead of Györ. The line, which was previously reserved exclusively for the A4 and A5 models, shall be used for this purpose.

It is therefore possible that the shift deletion will be as quickly off the table as it came up. After a meeting on early Friday morning, a decision should be made. There is a high probability that Audi will withdraw the cancellation.

It is not the first time that such a situation has arisen at Audi: Already in 2016 it was announced that one of the three night shift lines would be cancelled. Shortly afterwards, the announcements were withdrawn.