Audi reaches deal with Brussels plant staff

By Ata Ufuk Seker

BRUSSELS (AA) - German car maker Audi and union representatives reached an agreement Monday on a redundancy plan for staff affected by the company’s soon-to-close Brussels plant.

Production at Audi Brussels, which employs around 3,000 people, is due to cease at the end of February.

As part of the agreement, Audi will pay factory workers twice the legally required compensation with additional bonuses according to their length of service in addition to their statutory severance pay, local media reported.

In this framework, factory employees with 30 years of seniority will receive gross compensation between €200,000 and €400,000 ($209,000 and $418,000) depending on their positions and salaries.

In July last year, Audi announced that the Brussels factory, where the luxury segment electric car model Q8 e-tron is produced, would be restructured due to a decline in demand.

The firm aims to continue production of the model in Mexico.

At the beginning of September 2024, the firm's management announced that Volkswagen Group, the owner of Audi, had not allocated any models for production at the Brussels plant, and this situation disturbed the factory employees and unions.

Audi started looking for new investors for the plant, but no suitable buyer was found.

*Writing by Gokhan Ergocun from Istanbul