Yeah, that's what worries me. Every time there's a story like this, and someone asks "what, why did the employees buckle over and implement this evil scheme?" you get a torrent of answers about:
"Well obviously they cared about losing their job, we need strong worker protections and unions."
"We just need a culture of calling people out on anti-social behavior, whether or not that specific transgression is already codified."
"We need strong regulations that penalize corner cutting."
But ... Germany is really good on all those points! So, if this kind of thing slips through there...
There needs to be law enforcement against the company itself. Penalties should take away the same proportion of income as they would be for a median citizen. If a crime is severe enough for a person to do 1 year in prison for, that's about 2% of their lifetime income taken from them plus loss of freedom. A crime of comparable severity should cost a company 2% in perpetuity. If they are outcompeted or forced into restructuring so be it. The threat of non-negligible financial consequences is the only thing that will compel change.
The individual low level employees are about as culpable for the emissions cheating as the muscle cells of a serial killer are for murdering someone. They hold no meaningful decision making power within the organization and operate according to the local incentive structure. The executives responsible for shaping the incentive structure are the ones who should be individually penalized. Market forces would help with this if illegal practices were appropriately costly.
"Well obviously they cared about losing their job, we need strong worker protections and unions."
"We just need a culture of calling people out on anti-social behavior, whether or not that specific transgression is already codified."
"We need strong regulations that penalize corner cutting."
But ... Germany is really good on all those points! So, if this kind of thing slips through there...