Opel announced it has signed a collective labor agreement with employees at its German plants in Rüsselsheim, Kaiserslautern and Eisenach that guarantees jobs until 2018.
The deal is a sign of improved relations between Opel’s management and its workforce, who in the past have disagreed over ways to return GM’s money-losing European unit to profitability by 2015.
“For the company and its employees this is an important step toward securing our future,” Ulrich Schumacher, Opel’s head of personnel, was quoted as saying by Reuters. The three plants together employ around 7,150 people.
Opel’s management vowed to give the Rüsselsheim factory an additional model to build, as GM CEO Mary Barra announced in late January. In addition, the Eisenach plant will continue to build the Corsa and Adam models, while the Kaiserslautern facility will continue building components. The plant in Bochum, however, will stop making cars at the end of this year.
According to a report from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the new model that will be built in Rüsselsheim will not be an Opel, with rumors talking about a Buick or Holden vehicle. That would make sense, as GM has already announced that it will stop making cars in Australia in 2017. A decision on which model will be added to the Rüsselsheim plant is expected in March 2014, with union sources estimating an output of tens of thousands of cars per year.
GM sees 2014 as a “transition year” in Europe. A redesigned Corsa will be introduced late in the year, while a redesigned Astra is expected to follow in early 2015, along with new families of gasoline and diesel engines, as part of GM’s efforts to return its European subsidiary to profitability.
By Dan Mihalascu
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