#Unions

Last Saturday, Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke wanted to address the workers at Opel’s Bochum plant. All he addressed was 2,000 backs as the workers got up and left.

Moody’s has been less than impressed with GM’s recent pension cuts/buyouts:

Opel chief Karl-Friedrich Stracke was asked to tell his workers unambiguously whether the Opel plant in Bochum will be closed or remain open. Today, Stracke met with workers in Bochum. He told them that no decision has been made – yet.

It’s said that people do resemble their dogs. The UAW surely looks more and more like the GM of old. For years, the UAW has spent more than it took, forcing it to live off its savings. Once again, the UAW wants to change this – two years from now. Until then, it will happily go on making losses.

Fritz Henderson could not save Saab.

Victor Muller could not save Saab.

Vladimir Antonov could not save Saab

Pang Qinghua could not save Saab.

Rachel Pang could not save Saab.

Now, Barack Obama is supposed to save Saab.

At least that’s how the Swedish metalworker union IF Metall sees it.

What was highly probable yesterday is definite: GM will shift production of the Astra compact from Germany to Ellesmere Port, England. Workers at the UK plant agreed nearly to a man and a woman (approval rate 94 percent) to a deal with GM that keeps Ellesmere Port open and that spells the near certain doom of Opel’s plant in Bochum.

Workers agreed to a four-year deal that freezes wages for two years, and that allows only moderate rises of around 3 percent for the following two years, Reuters heard from a source. The source also said:

Tomorrow, Thursday morning, GM will most likely announce that the new Opel Astra will be built at the Ellesmere Port plant near Liverpool, and no longer in Germany. This ends weeks of hard-nosed gamesmanship, where one plant was played against the other.

After a lot of talk, GM is beginning to create facts at Opel: The production of Opel’s volume model, the Astra, will be moved from Rüsselsheim to Opel/Vauxhall sites in Ellesmere Port and Gliwice, Poland. This according to reports in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which receives usually reliable information from Opel’s unions.

800 workers at a Daimler plant that builds Sprinter commercial vehicles downed their tools and walked off the job after wage talks collapsed.

“Community” is a nebulous buzzword here in liberal Canuckistan, with the term moving from a synonym for neighborhood, to describing everything from ethnic groups targeted by vote-hungry political parties, to an exercise in social engineering by Ivory Tower types, eager to ram pseudo-progressive initiatives through various legislative and judicial avenues. No wonder the CAW’s new “National Auto Policy”, full of old-school labor/social democrat policies, is being branded with the slogan “It’s About The Community”. Huh?

“This would be the most expensive plant closure of all times,” warned Rainer Einenkel, chief of Opel’s works council and Vice Chairman of its supervisory board. “This would cost GM billions,” Einenkel said today at a news conference following a staff meeting in Bochum. “Opel would not survive this.”

Opel’s supervisory board meeting ended with nothing. All the board, which consists of 50 percent labor and 50 percent of what is called “the equity side,” could agree on was that revenue, costs and margins are important. It’s good they have figured that out by now. Plant closures have been tabled. There is no sense in announcing them now anyway – plants cannot be closed before 2015.

GM has turned its Ellesmere Port plant into “a no-go area for media amid ongoing speculation over its future,” says The Guardian. Staff and suppliers have been told to avoid reporters. “Attempts to photograph Astras awaiting delivery at the site’s distribution centre prompt a visit from security guards who ask the Guardian to desist,” says the paper.

Today, the Supervisory Board of GM’s ill-fated Opel division is meeting. For the first time, the unions are in the majority on the board. In addition to half of the seats in the boardroom being occupied by representatives named by labor, UAW boss Bob King is taking part in the meeting. It is unlikely that King’s vote will strengthen the labor side. King comes as an emissary of GM, where the UAW, through VEBA, owns 10 percent of the stock. Representing the capitalist side of the equation, King will have to vote for job losses and plant closures. If not today, then soon.

Last week, Opel’s labor representatives complained that GM does not want to negotiate with them. Now it’s the unions that don’t want to talk. Today, labor representatives of eight countries sent Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke a letter. The letter consisted of only one sentence, written in eight languages: