Shortly after a Venezuelan court ordered the seizure of General Motors’ local facility, it has emerged that 2,678 employees have lost their jobs and were informed via text.
Autoblog reports that two ex-employees at the Valencia plant received text messages over the weekend informing them that they were no longer employed by General Motors and that their bank accounts had receive severance pay.
Prior to the court order, GM was dismantling the plant having not built a vehicle there since the start of 2016 because of a shortage of parts and currency controls enforced by the Venezuelan government.
Despite once being the fourth larger producer of vehicles in Latin America, the country’s industry has collapsed in recent years and in 2016, just eight automobiles were being built there per day.
General Motors claims that the seizure of the plant is illegal but the leftist government doesn’t want GM to abandon the country.
Speaking to the press, labor minister Frencisco Torrealba said “To the current General Motors president of Venezuela, Jose Cavaileri: You come here, show your face and share with us the options to restore normality.”
GM hasn’t revealed any details about the layoffs or the amount of severance pay employees received but according to union leaders, it wasn’t enough.
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