The Opel owner Peugeot wants to cancel the Eisenach site, apparently half of the jobs. The Chancellor now promises help to the staff – and reminds the French of their promise to take over.
Merkel in Bad Schmiedeberg
Wednesday, 18.04.2018
17:55 clock
After reports of cuts at Opel’s Eisenach site, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called on the French Peugeot Group (PSA) to honor its commitments to the acquisition. “The federal government feels together with the state governments also in the duty to do their part to help,” Merkel said after a meeting with the East German Prime Minister in Bad Schmiedeberg.
“We now expect the company to comply with everything it promised in the context of the acquisition,” the CDU chief continues. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Labor has already had talks with the affected Opel sites.
Peugeot wants Apparently, the number of employees at the Opel site in Eisenach, Thuringia, is almost halved, The workforce could shrink from about 1800 to just under 1000 people, if the previously existing production planning is implemented, it was said in circles of IG Metall.
PSA has so far assured, however, to advance the rehabilitation of the long-stricken carmaker without layoffs and plant closures. Extensive severance packages are to reduce the workforce, but numbers for their adoption have not yet been published.
No denial from Opel
An Opel spokesman said on request only that the company does not comment on “speculation”. “Increasing the competitiveness of the Eisenach plant is currently the subject of negotiations with our social partners and the prerequisite for sustainable investment.”
Under the leadership of PSA, Opel wants to install only an off-road vehicle in Eisenach in the medium term. The Opel Adam should initially continue, while the Corsa future will be built exclusively in Spain. According to reports, it is planned to switch from three to two shifts. The IG Metall insists, however, that PSA is bound to previous tariff production commitments of the old owner General Motors.
So far, investment commitments have only been made for Opel plants outside of Germany, while discussions in this country with IG Metall are stalling. PSA canceled the urgently needed investment decision for Eisenach on Monday and demanded further wage concessions.
According to IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann, all the cost targets aimed at by PSA for the plant in Eisenach are achievable – “without interfering with existing collective agreements,” Hofmann told Wirtschaftswoche. In the current dispute over financial concessions of workers, he “has the impression that this is simply an example to be made in order to intimidate the Opel workforce.”