[artplumber]

Observations:
Stijn,
Obviously, VW is not happy with it's economic outlook, otherwise the workers wouldn't be asked to take an increase in hours without a pay hike.

The entire article actually indicates that VW initially chose to decrease the work hours to keep from firing employees IIRC. Now, everyone has gotten accustomed to it, and are resisting returning to higher #'s of hours, so the union didn't negotiate the wonderful hours, the company tried to maintain it's workforce - let's see the US big 3 do that.

Finally, some people are hell-bent on buying German, because of yesteryear when; you want it = VW and you made it = Mercedez for the sedan/Pcar for the sportscar. This is changing. Obviously, if you choose to pay a $3000 premium for a german car of any kind, then you are helping those workers out.