Protests against sales plans at Opel
Employees of Opel demonstrate at the headquarters Rüsselsheim against Segula.
MunichOn 6 May, more than 1,700 engineers and technicians were received in the OpelDevelopment Center ITEZ in Rüsselsheim are busy, an unpleasant email from their employer. In the best of bureaucratic German, management informed them that their services were no longer needed. The affected employees would now have the choice: Either they change to the French service provider Segula, or leave Opel on voluntary programs such as partial retirement, early retirement and severance pay.
Many of the employees who were contacted were initially confused: While the management wrote “personal information” in the subject line, the address was generally “Dear Colleague, Dear Employee,” read there. Were you really meant personally or someone else?
It was a shambles, it says in corporate circles. Many employees felt Opel “betrayed and sold,” trade unionists report. There should be whole departments in the ITEZ who have stopped the work. “There is chaos,” states an insider. The whole thing was organized and orchestrated “bumptious”.
The whole thing – this is a deal between Opel and the French development service provider Segula, who has been causing a heated argument in Rüsselsheim for months. In autumn 2018, the two companies agreed a strategic partnership. To reduce overcapacity in ITEZ, Opel wanted to outsource 2,000 of 6,500 developers to Segula. But the original deal has long been waste. More than a thousand Opelans have already voted against SegulaTo fight the remaining thousand, the French are relentless.
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Segula is determined to build an “engineering campus” on the Opel factory premises in Rüsselsheim. “Our plan is exactly the same as before, we have not changed it,” explains Franck Vigot, automotive director of Segula, in an interview with Handelsblatt. By 2023, the campus will have 2,000 employees. The only difference: The French start smaller and compete alongside the Opel troops for professionals on the open market.
The goal is the world market
“The first day the partnership enters into force is not really critical. We are a family business and very long-term oriented, “says Vigot. And the German market is “of strategic interest” for its group.
Vigot wants to eradicate the great vulnerability of Segula. The company from Nanterre near Paris has grown rapidly in recent years, from a medium-sized company, a group that operates in 30 countries, has nearly 12,000 employees and Vigot before a return on sales before taxes, interest and depreciation of “six to eight percent Achieved. But just in Germany, the most important car market in Europe, Segula is an unknown dwarf.
Car manufacturer: Almost 1,000 Opel specialists refuse change to Segula
“It is very important that we are present here and with manufacturers like VW, BMW and Daimler “This is the prerequisite for exporting our know-how to the USA, Russia and China.” Hessen should only be an intermediate step for the great expansion of Segula around the globe. These are extremely ambitious plans. And for the first time, Vigot gives an insight into what exactly he plans to do on the Opel site at the headquarters.
First, he aims to conceive and industrialize vehicles in Rüsselsheim. “We want to do facelifts and derivatives of models on existing platforms, for example, to make a SUV out of a sedan,” explains Vigot. Secondly, the German Segula team will focus on the development of drivetrains, first on internal combustion engines, later on electric drives and the fuel cell as needed.
The IG metal is split
Responding to the plans of Segula, intimate Opel connoisseurs respond dumbfounded. “These are exactly the activities that ITEZ engineers are supposed to do in the future,” says an insider. Another explains: “There is not much left for Opel.” The worries that the carmaker gets a competitor on its own grounds through the deal with Segula, also industry experts consider to be quite justified.
Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, head of the Center of Automotive Research, is convinced that the French Opel parent company PSA (Peugeot, Citroën, DS) in the summer of 2017, primarily the market shares of Hesse wanted to acquire. The result: Of the 4,500 jobs that will initially remain in the ITEZ after the deal with Segula, would “in ten years, perhaps 500 left,” suspects Dudenhöffer.
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Opel contradicts: “The development center is and remains the heart of Opel. All Opel models will continue to be developed in Rüsselsheim, and we will also be responsible for numerous important tasks for the entire company Groupe PSA“In fact, the brand should in future be responsible for the development of light commercial vehicles in the PSA Group, for example, it is allowed to promote fuel cell technology and looks after four-cylinder gasoline engines.
But how many jobs does it all?? “Not several thousand,” it says in Group circles. Segula sees this as an opportunity. “We get a lot of positive feedback – from Opel employees as well as potential customers,” says Vigot. More than ten Opel executives had already hired at Segula, 400 external applications would exist.
In addition to Opel, the French had also signed contracts with two other automakers, says Vigot. Segula is close to a collective bargaining agreement with IG Metall. This leads to a paradox situation: The union is split. While the administration of the district center aims at collective bargaining, the shop stewards of the IG metal in operation against the French; they had defamed Segula as a “service butler”.
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