Car industry crisis: Automobile workers don't believe taxing Chinese EVs is the solution

It is important to note that these are western European workers. For them the Chinese competition is largely irrellevant as their companies have been moving production to eastern Europe for a while now and they realize that their problem is structural.

All what the trariffs on Chinese EVs will do is conserve the status quo for European car makers a few more years, which doesn't help western European workers at all.

I guess the answer lies up the supply chain: Automakers have historically provided well-paid, cushy union jobs to their direct employees. However, that business model has increasingly depended on squeezing the supply chain. E.g. a relative used to work at a automotive supplier around 10 years ago — their blue collar workers got the 8.x€/h German minimum wage while employees at VW in the same region got 3x that plus an assortment of benefits.

At the same time, modern cars include a lot of electronics that aren't even produced within the EU at all (and EV batteries are the worst bit here). Hence, European car manufacturers depend on products imported from China to create functionally and economically competitive cars. A trade war with China could upend that symbiosis.

(Fwiw, you'll also notice that one of the union representatives at the end hints that they want government subsidies of some sort.)

Also state subsidies.

Also not extracting profits for the shareholders (for now).

European cars could be much less expensive if the car makers weren't required to make profits for their owners above all else.