Opel Works Councils Rely On Unity

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 09:36

The works councils of the car manufacturer Opel are counting on a united appearance before the board meeting on Wednesday. As a lone fighter you have no chance against GM, said works council boss Schäfer-Klug.

In the dispute over further austerity measures at the Rüsselsheim car manufacturer Opel, the works councils are demonstratively closed. Employee representatives from nine European countries jointly published a letter to Opel boss Karl-Friedrich Stracke on Monday, which consists of a single sentence - which is, however, translated into eight languages: “Dear Mr. Stracke, we will not negotiate with you locally Lead level."

Background: The European workers and the metalworking union EMF accuse the management of Opel and the US parent company General Motors (GM) of wanting to play off the sites against each other and to put the employee representatives in individual plants under brutal pressure. This is exactly what they want to prevent in the upcoming negotiations on wage cuts and other austerity measures. To do this, they are pulling together before the Supervisory Board meeting this Wednesday.

Opel Supervisory Board meets on Wednesday

That is the signature of Opel general works council chief Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug, who said in the latest edition of the employee newspaper "Opel Post": We only have influence if we are able to coordinate globally. " As a lone fighter from Rüsselsheim, he hardly has a chance to influence decisions in Detroit.

The first decisions on how Opel should drive out of the red are expected on Wednesday in the control committee of Adam Opel AG. Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke told the “Bild” newspaper that you should “turn every stone”. According to media reports, according to which the Bochum and Ellesmere Port sites in particular are at risk, he had ruled out plant closings until 2014 and pledged to secure the site.

Stracke had already emphasized at the Geneva Motor Show at the beginning of March that they would stand by the contracts concluded with the unions. Until then, there is a contract that also excludes operational dismissals. In return, the 40,000 Opel employees in Europe forego 265 million euros annually.

For this reason alone, Schäfer-Klug assesses the willingness of the workforce to make sacrifices again to be very low: “What we notice is that people are disappointed, that the promises made by management seem to be of no value today. »

The letter to Stracke was signed by the 24 members of Opel's European works council, including representatives from the four German sites in Rüsselsheim, Bochum, Eisenach and Kaiserslautern. The "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" evaluated the declaration as a reaction to a list of demands from Opel production manager Peter Thom, which he presented individually to each of the plants. It demands more flexible working hours and the waiver of weekend surcharges and wage increases, writes the newspaper: "Plants whose workforces do not bow to the requirements must expect not to be taken into account when allocating future production of new car models."

According to a "Spiegel" report, GM also wants to reduce its capacities in Western Europe and, in return, increase it in "low-cost countries" in order to become more profitable. (AG / dpa)