European automotive supplier body, CLEPA, has cautioned major players on the continent not to engage in a battle with each other as unions issued a blunt letter to Opel’s management on restructuring talks.
CLEPA issued its view against an increasingly fraught European backdrop that could see established giants slash capacity – and jobs – as automakers struggle with significantly reduced demand.
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Only last night (26 March), the European Employee Forum (EEF) wrote an open letter to Opel CEO Karl-Friedrich Stracke rejecting outright any suggestion of plant-by-plant restructuring talks.
Opel’s Bochum plant and UK division Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port site have been constantly cited as being under threat of closure with the potential loss of tens of thousands of jobs in assembly and manufacture.
The unions clearly fear they will be played off one against the other as the blunt and brutally abrupt letter to Stracke makes abundantly clear: “Dear Mr Stracke,” it says. “We will not negotiate with you on [a] local level.”
Such a fear of a ‘divide and rule’ approach was echoed by CLEPA CEO Lars Holmqvist, who urged a more common approach to competititve issues.
“We are facing new competition now from new carmakers such as China and India, but now the US, Chrysler and General Motors are much sharper and leaner,” he told just-auto in his Brussels office.
“I think we need to be careful we don’t fight with each other, that we don’t kill each other in Europe. We need to save our strength so we can compete on old and new markets.”
The stark letter to Stracke was signed by the heads of Opel/Vauxhall’s EEF Forum, local representatives and the European Metalworkers Federation.
Key signatories included Rainer Einenkel from Bochum in Germany and John Fetherston from Ellesmere Port in North West England – whose plants are apparently under threat of possible closure.
