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Union: Opel Cuts Won’t Be As Harsh as Those at Ford
Wolfgang Schaefer-Klug, the top labor official at General Motors Co.'s Opel unit, tells Reuters he expects a union agreement with the company to be much milder than the European restructuring Ford Motor Co. unveiled last month.
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Wolfgang Schaefer-Klug, the top labor official at General Motors Co.'s Opel unit, tells Reuters he expects a union agreement with the company to be much milder than the European restructuring Ford Motor Co. unveiled last month.
Ford intends to shutter a factory in Belgium next year and two more in England in late 2014, thereby eliminating 5,700 jobs.
Opel's assembly plant in Bochum, Germany, which is slated to close in 2017, is the only European facility whose fate is being discussed, according to Schaeffer-Klug. He says the union is seeking job security for Bochum workers after that date and a two-year extension to 2016 of a broader ban on job cuts in Germany.
Schaeffer-Klug predicts a labor deal at Opel before Christmas. Since early this year the company and its unions have repeatedly set and missed dates for concluding talks. Another union leader suggested last month that negotiations might stretch into 2013.
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