8,000 Opel Employees On A Warning Strike

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

At the Opel headquarters in Rüsselsheim, 8,000 employees took part in a warning strike. They used the strike planned as part of the collective bargaining negotiations to demonstrate against relocating production of the Astra.

Opel management is facing a possible dispute with the union and the workforce. The workers are up against the planned withdrawal of Astra production from Rüsselsheim. On Tuesday, around 8,000 Opel employees used the warning strikes in the metal wage dispute at the Opel headquarters alone to protest against the management's austerity plans. "I am warning the board of directors of Adam Opel AG against continuing to pursue existing plans to relocate Astra production from Rüsselsheim to Gliwice in Poland," said IG Metall District Manager Armin Schild.

Opel employees in Kaiserslautern also protested

1,700 Opel employees also took part in the warning strikes in Kaiserslautern. In North Rhine-Westphalia IG-Metall district manager Oliver Burkhard told the German press agency: "It is a highly indecent game of the General Motors (GM) / Opel management how the new poker for the locations is now opened at the expense of the employees. " Opel supervisory board member Schild described the management's plans as a challenge to the workforce at all German locations and to IG Metall: "If no more Astra will be manufactured in Germany from 2015, a significant part of the Rüsselsheim production capacity will be missing."

The union fears that as a replacement for the Astra the production of the Zafira could be relocated from Bochum to Rüsselsheim: "Should production be relocated, it is to be feared that the Bochum location is indirectly endangered." IG Metall cannot and will not accept this. The plant in the Ruhr area with around 3,200 employees has long been on the management's cross-off list.

On Monday, plans of the management became known, according to which the company no longer wants to have the Opel Astra built in the main plant in Rüsselsheim for cost reasons, but instead completely in England and Poland. This would mean that around a third of production would be lost in Rüsselsheim.

IG Metall: Don't play off locations against each other

During the warning strike of the metal workers at the Kaiserslautern plant, IG Metall board member Hans-Jürgen Urban warned Opel management against playing off the locations against each other: "There is no separate IG Metall Rüsselsheim, Bochum, Eisenach or Kaiserslautern, only one IG Metall." The union will fight together with the employees for the future of all locations. The company is obliged to present a concept to secure all locations instead of asking the employees to pay. Schild said in Rüsselsheim: "We will not deliver the feed that some gentlemen want to feed the piggy banks with."

There is also resistance to the plans in politics. The SPD members of the Bundestag of the four German Opel locations expressed their solidarity in a joint message with the Opel employees: "If the GM executive floor tries to relocate the production of the Astra abroad and the Zafira from Bochum to Rüsselsheim, the Opel and Vauxhall Playing off locations in Germany and Europe against one another and thereby depressing the conditions of Opel employees is not only devastating for the employees, but also for the future of the company."

If the Opel management does not give in in the debate, IG Metall is already threatening a hard conflict in Rüsselsheim. Schild said, "Everyone knows we can." Hesse’s SPD state chairman Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel said in front of Opel employees in Rüsselsheim: "I'm fed up with the lack of plan of GM management." He insisted on compliance with the contracts that guarantee Rüsselsheim part of the Astra production.

Stracke: Astra production guaranteed until the end of 2014

Adam Opel AG had confirmed negotiations with the employees about production locations for the next generation of the Astra. The decision is part of the plan to make Opel / Vauxhall's business in Europe profitable. Opel boss Karl-Friedrich Stracke said in the Tuesday edition of the Bild newspaper that the company was committed to manufacturing the current Astra in Rüsselsheim by the end of 2014. After the current talks are concluded, the company will decide where the next generation of the Astra will be manufactured.

Despite the recent deep cuts, in which one plant in Antwerp and around 9,000 jobs in Europe were lost, the manufacturer suffers from overcapacities. In view of the declining European car market and the lack of opportunities to sell cars outside of Europe, sales are paralyzing. In Bochum, 300 more jobs will be lost at the end of 2013 when gear production there is stopped. (AG / dpa)