The Sword of Damocles hanging over the 19,000 Opel workers’ jobs in Germany has been lifted. In the evening of 29 May, and following long and tough negotiations between management at the automaker that was bought in August 2017 by French car giant PSA, Opel’s central works council, and the IG Metall union, the announcement came that an agreement in principle had been struck on the future of Opel’s German facilities. In the agreement Opel agrees to proceed with significant investment programs at both the production sites (Eisenach, Rüsselsheim and Kaiserslautern) and at the R&D site in Rüsselshelm. Furthermore, Opel has agreed to extend the agreement safeguarding jobs (no job losses on economic grounds) until the summer of 2023. In exchange, workers have agreed to demands for additional pay concessions. The German carmaker intends to continue with its voluntary employee leave program targeting 3,700 fewer jobs out of the total 19,000 headcount. PSA’s German subsidiary is heavily indebted and with these changes it hopes to reach profitability by 2020.
This agreement draws a significant dispute to a close that had pitted PSA management, which was essentially accusing its German workers, and in contrast with their European colleagues, of not being willing to make much needed wage concessions in order to get the brand back on track, against IG Metall, which was criticizing PSA head, Carlos Tavares and Opel board chairman, Michael Lohscheller of maintaining a level of uncertainty over the future of the German facilities and in breaching a promise made to uphold collective agreements signed with IG Metall during the period when Opel was a member of the General Motors family.
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