UK union leaders are to protest vehemently to General Motors following intense
speculation the US automaker could close its Vauxhall plant at Ellesmere Port.

Rumours refuse to disappear surrounding the future of the Astra-producing site in North-West England and as GM grapples with ways to slash its European operations’ enormous losses, which it revealed last week totalled US$700m for 2011.

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But any suggestion GM could shutter Ellesmere Port has provoked a vitriolic response from the Unite union, which cites the factory’s efficiency and a legally-binding agreement with the Detroit manufacturer to keep production going until 2014.

“There is not one iota of business logic in closure and that is the case we will be making stridently to GM and their shareholders,” said Unite national officer Roger Maddison in a statement emailed to just-auto.

“Ellesmere Port is the most efficient plant in GM’s European family and the UK is their biggest market. There is a legally-binding agreement with GM to support production at EP until 2014.”

The union’s angry reaction follows hard on the heels of a visit by one of the UK’s most senior cabinet ministers to New York yesterday (1 March), where he is believed to have made a personal plea to GM CEO Dan Akerson to save the Astra plant – and 2,100 jobs – from the axe.

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A GM spokeswoman in the UK confirmed Business Secretary Vince Cable was in New York yesterday, but remained tight-lipped as to who he might have met.

“We have to wait and are exploring the options,” the spokeswoman told just-auto. “We have no additonal comment to make – it is just the same as before.”

Cable’s Department for Business, Innovations and Skills was not immediately available for comment.

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