3700 jobs are lost, wage waivers, dismissal protection until 2023: restructuring pact at Opel stands

05/30/2018

3700 jobs are eliminated, wage waivers, protection against dismissal until 2023 Opel works council agrees rehabilitation pact

DPA

Last night, the works council and management agreed on Opel

After weeks of struggle, Opel and workers have come to a compromise. To refurbish the car maker, 3700 jobs are lost and employees temporarily forgo their salary components. In return, the rest of the employees will be protected from dismissal until 2023, and Opel will also implement the already committed investments in the Eisenach plant.

Works council and management of Opel have agreed on key points for the preservation of all plants in Germany. The French Opel parent company PSA Peugeot Citroen said the already promised investment in new models, did not put the expenditure. The works council enforced that the reduction in staff required by PSA was limited to 3,700 jobs.

The job cuts should be made on a voluntary basis through partial retirement, early retirement and severance pay. According to Opel, already 3,500 employees have accepted corresponding offers. For all other of the total of more than 18,000 employees in Germany, protection against dismissal was agreed until July 2023.

The decisions are an important milestone on the way to make Opel competitive, said CEO Michael Lohscheller. In it, the Rüsselsheim car maker is aiming for an operating margin of 2 percent by 2020 and 6 percent by 2026. Similar agreements with employees already exist in Spain, Great Britain, Austria and Eastern Europe.

In return, gave PSA free the investment in the smallest Opel plant in Eisenach, which the workers had struggled to persist. There, from the middle of next year, the off-road vehicle Grandland X will be built in two shifts. From 2020, a hybrid version of this model will also be launched there.

Concessions also in wages

As part of the agreement, the workforce dispensed with certain components of the collective bargaining agreement agreed in the spring for metal and electrical appliances. According to union information, the additional tariff applicable from 2019 in the industry will be suspended – according to Opel these payments will be canceled – and the tariff increases will be paid later from 2020 onwards.

The details of the recovery plan are now to be negotiated in collective agreements and company agreements between the union and management.

IG Metall threatened to worsen the conflict if employment in the three German plants in Rüsselsheim, Kaiserslautern and Eisenach were not to be safeguarded beyond 2020. Peugeot had made concessions to the workforce for new models and products. PSA boss Carlos Tavares wants to lead the chronically deficit brand with the flash and their British sister Vauxhall out of the red by 2020.

PSA had taken over Opel last year from General Motors. The Group has agreed not to close any plants in Germany and to waive redundancies. Already under the American parent company, thousands of jobs had been cut and the vehicle factories in Bochum and Antwerp closed. Opel has been in the red for almost 20 years.

rei / Reuters

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