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09. 02. 10. - 15:00

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09. 02. 10. - 15:00

GM Vienna jobs 'safe' as European cull announced

Workers at car maker Opel’s plant in Vienna will not be affected by massive job cuts announced by General Motors’ (GM) today (Tues).

Opel head Nick Reilly said GM was laying off 8,300 staff across Europe.

But bosses at the GM Powertrain factory in Aspern in the capital’s Donaustadt district said today neither jobs nor administrative resources at the site were at risk.

Smaller fuel engines and gear mechanisms are produced in the Powertrain factory. Around ninety per cent of its production is delivered to GM’s German subsidiary Opel and British sister firm Vauxhall. Every second Opel has a transmission and every third Opel an engine produced at the Vienna plant.

GM announced a part-time move for 1,540 of the 1,800 Powertrain staff at the beginning of last year, but put 1,140 of them put back into a full-time work in March. The remaining 400 part-time workers went back working full-time in June.

GM argued the German government’s subsidy scheme for scrapping old cars that went into effect in January 2009 had had a positive impact on its business in Europe.

There are currently no plans to reintroduce part-time contracts at the factory since it has received an increasing number of orders over the past few months.

Powertrain staff were sceptic about their future when GM decided in November to keep struggling Opel, describing it as essential to its global strategy. Many employees at the Aspern plant would have welcomed a takeover by Austrian-Canadian car parts supplier Magna as this decision had posed higher chances for a secure future for the factory.

Bosses at GM, Opel and German government negotiators announced in September 2009 they had agreed with Russian Sberbank and Magna – the firm founded by Styrian entrepreneur Frank Stronach in 1957 – about the takeover of a majority stake. GM however eventually decided not to drop its European subsidiary – an announcement which prompted economic experts to warn of dramatic cuts and sackings.

Reilly said today 7,000 production positions and 1,300 administration jobs would be cut.

He added Opel were considering asking Germany for 1.5 billion Euros in state aid – an option that has been met with anger by political leaders throughout Europe. The Opel head said the plan was to obtain an overall 2.7 billion Euros in public funding in the countries the company has branches.

Reilly also announced plans to invest around 11 billion Euros by 2014 in a bid to create a new products portfolio.

Opel earlier this year revealed plans to close its factory in Antwerp, Belgium, in the course of this year.

Opel board members and workers union bosses in several European countries are now set to hold talks over cuts and factory closures.

German Opel workers union officials fear Opel’s plants in Rüsselsheim and Kaiserslautern could be closed.

Austrian Times

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