As of today (27), Volkswagen do Brasil’s São Bernardo do Campo plant, in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, will grant employees 10 days of collective vacation, due to lack of semiconductors, as confirmed by the company.
The ABC Metalworkers Union reported that 3,000 workers will have collective vacations due to the lack of parts and electronic components to finish the production of vehicles. The metallurgists will be out of the factory until July 7th. The automaker did not disclose the number of employees involved.
According to information from the union, the semiconductor crisis has several factors, but for the automotive sector the main one is the restricted availability of components for the sector by suppliers. Also according to the entity, this is a very broad crisis that involves geopolitical factors, logistics, pandemic and even climatic factors, and has been going on for at least three years.
The automaker had already placed around 2,500 metallurgists in collectives in the month of may for problems in the parts supply chain. Union data show that the company has around 8,200 workers at the São Bernardo plant, of which 4,500 are in production.
The general coordinator of the union’s representation at Volkswagen, José Roberto Nogueira da Silva, believes that the lack of components has impacted not only the automotive sector, but the entire Brazilian industrial sector. “This is a problem that has been afflicting not only the auto industry. The entire national industry has been impacted. This ends up directly hitting the workers. The lack of industrial and development policy in the country has caused the disruption of the national production chain,” he said in a note.
According to Silva, an agreement in force at the automaker, negotiated between the union and the company, gives workers peace of mind about their jobs. “It is very important right now to have a long-term agreement that provides for situations like this that have been going on for a long time. The agreement gives predictability for workers to organize and also for the company to think about the future of the plant”.
