After a meeting in Rüsselsheim of a joint working group composed of Management and Employee representatives, General Motors’ European Employee Forum (EEF) announced today that there would be no economic reason for a potential plant closure in connection with the allocation of the next global Delta (Astra). According to the EEF a realistic scenario where all plants could survive is economically feasible. There would exist a lot of opportunities for additional volume beyond the 750.000 Delta cars which was shown to the employee representatives by GM Management 2 weeks ago because of the new so-called global car architectures. An important principle for the employee representatives would be that cars which should be sold in the European market should be produced in the European plants.
According to GM’s European Employee Forum the Employee Representatives are able to close a potential financial gap of approx. 290 Mio Euro to improve the competitiveness of the plants. Precondition to that effort would be that GM Management is willing to work on common solutions beyond a plant closure and in the direction of a fair capacity utilization amongst the Delta plants. Further reductions of structural costs would be also jointly investigated in case that GM Management provides the necessary consolidated data to the joint working group. In this information and consultation process on the European level the Employee Representatives are supported by professional economic advisers (Management Engineers) who check all the data and proposals presented by GM Management.