Row over Opel flares up

Works councils representing the interests of employees at European Opel and Vauxhall production facilities on Monday warned the carmakers' managers and those from their parent company General Motors (GM) against trying to negotiate separate local deals with individual locations.

"We will not engage in negotiations at the local level," read a one-sentence letter to Opel's Chief Executive Karl-Friedrich Stracke. The note was translated into eight languages.

The document was signed by Opel and Vauxhall works councils across Europe as well as by members of Opel's pan-European works council, the European Employee Forum (EEF). It represents the interests of 40,000 workers at 12 Opel and GM facilities in Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Austria, Poland, Spain and Hungary.

According to a report carried by the Monday edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, the open letter to the management was a response to a catalog of demands that Opel Production Chief Peter Thom had presented to the workforce at individual sites.

Pitting council against council

Employees were reported to have been put under pressure with a view to making them accept more flexible working hours and renounce bonuses for weekend shifts. They were also requested to promise that they would not call for wage hikes, the report maintained.

Further, facilities which didn't play along would no longer be considered by the management when it came to defining production sites for new brands. Works councils branded those local negotiations as foul play. The councils saw those demands as attempts by the managers to play the various facilities off against each other.

GM has been reviewing how to fix its loss-making European division, but union contracts rule out any plant closures up until 2014.

However, speculation has been running wild in recent weeks despite the management's word it would abide by those contracts. There have been reports about GM allegedly hoping to sell Opel completely any time soon. Other rumors have included closing Opel's site in Bochum, Germany, and shutting down the Vauxhall facility in Ellesmere Port in the UK.

hg / gsw (dpa, Reuters, AP, AFP)