Spain: the works council of Opel’s Figueruelas site rejects Magna’s plan and calls for a strike

The El Periodico daily in Aragon pointed out that 25,000 direct or indirect jobs depend on Opel Spain and launched a campaign entitled “For employment at Opel.” It says that the Spanish site is “unfairly” treated by General Motors. “It isn’t fair that 27 years of efforts at Figueruelas are being questioned by a political or employers’ decision. The factory is considered one of the best, with the best quality/volume ratio and was a referent for GM. The Corsa model, flagship of Opel Spain, could end up in a German factory, less competitive than Figueruelas (…).” The eight-step program Magna presented to the staff representatives on Friday, October 16 wasn’t really different from previous offers. It provides maintaining the two production lines in Saragossa with a technical capacity of 478 production units and the necessary investments. It guarantees that the GSV (global small vehicle, the new Corsa) will be in Saragossa and that the management will invest what is needed to develop it. The program endorses 1,350 job cuts as well as a division of production between Eisenach and Figueruelas, as it was initially presented: 70% for Spain and 30% for Germany, with a bump to 72% for Figueruelas in 2013. But the factory’s works council said this wasn’t enough, judged that negotiations were frozen and called for a strike within the next few days.