GM Agrees to Keep Three Opel Plants Open Through 2018

TTAC Staff
by TTAC Staff

Opels being assembled in Eisenach, Germany

Just a few days after new GM CEO Mary Barra visited Opel’s headquarters in Ruesselsheim and said the company’s plant there will be assigned a new vehicle to build, General Motors’ Opel unit has come to an agreement with the company’s labor unions to extend until the end of 2018 a no-layoff guarantee at three German plants. According to Reuters, the Ruesselsheim factory, plants at Kaiserslautern and Eisenach will remain open. Opel also announced that the Eisenach assembly plant will build the next generation Opel Adam and Corsa models. Approximately 7,150 employees work at the three factories.

Production ends later this year at Opel’s fourth German factory in Bochum.

The agreement is a hopeful sign of better labor relations at Opel. Management and labor have differed in the recent past about how to return GM’s European unit to profitability.

“For the company and its employees this is an important step toward securing our future,” Ulrich Schumacher, Opel’s head of personnel, said in a statement.

In the labor deal, Opel promised to add another model for Ruesselsheim to build, to continue making the Adam and Corse in Eisenach and to keep the Kaiserslautern component operations going.

GM has lost an estimated $18 billion on its European operations over the last 12 years. The company says that it’s on track to break even in Europe in 2015 after a redesigned Corsa subcompact is launched late this year, and a redesigned Astra concept is introduced next year along with new gasoline and diesel engines.

TTAC Staff
TTAC Staff

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 3 comments
  • Detroit-X Detroit-X on Feb 03, 2014

    C: Alex, I'll take "GM News Releases" for $100. A: GM has announced "on track to break even" for this region every year for the past 20 years. C: Um, that would be Opel.. What is Europe...? A: That's right, ding-ding, you control the board...

  • Buickman Buickman on Feb 03, 2014

    I like this, a lot.

  • PrincipalDan PrincipalDan on Feb 03, 2014

    Past performance is a predictor of future results...

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