General Motors and German labour union IG Metall have given themselves four months to hammer out a definitive plan to restructure the loss-making operations of Opel, the US carmaker's European brand. "The aim of the negotiations is to create a road map for Opel through 2016 and even beyond.
I can tell you that labour is absolutely determined to reach a fair deal," Oliver Burkhard, a senior IG Metall official, told Reuters on June 14.
GM, IG Metall and Opel's labour leaders said that they were in talks over a plan to end production at the company's Bochum plant at the end of 2016 in exchange for guaranteeing all German jobs to the end of that period.
"We are unlikely to have certainty by the end of October whether Bochum will be closed. But we still have a good four years until then, and when I think about all the things that have changed in the past four years, then nothing is written in stone," Burkhard said.
Burkhard added that talks could begin in earnest because the right people were finally sitting at the table. "It makes no sense to discuss with the German management what GM's overall strategy is for Opel," he said. "Thankfully, we got what we wanted and General Motors, the parent, is negotiating with us directly, so we now have a greater certainty than before when it comes to agreements."
IG Metall is offering to defer a wage increase if GM considers shifting the manufacture of some of the 160,000 vehicles it makes overseas and imports to Europe. "The Chevrolet Orlando that is built in Korea shares the same underpinnings as the Zafira built in Bochum, for example," Burkhard said.
Nevertheless, Burkhard believes that the most urgent problems at Opel are not its labour costs in Germany. "We are way beyond the point of discussing whether there is one plant too many or two, in view of all the overcapacity," he said. "Rather, I am worried about the company in its entirety. I am not in a celebratory mood, but we have won time without losing money.
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