Ongoing industrial niggle over General Motors’ Brazil’s decision to build the new Chevrolet Spin at São Caetano do Sul (Greater São Paulo) rather than the São José dos Campos plant, where the previous generation Meriva and Zafira are made, led to a 24-hour strike this week to protest dwindling output on an assembly line where workers fear for the future of 1,500 jobs.
The Metalworkers Union of Sao Jose dos Campos said in a statement cited by Reuters that the strike had paralysed production at the plant, near Sao Paulo, which normally produces 750 vehicles per day. But a GM executive said many employees still came into work, allowing for production at a slower pace.
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“On the first shift, which is the most productive, we had enough workers to continue above half capacity” said Luiz Moan, GM’s head of institutional relations in Brazil, in a telephone interview. He added that a third of workers on the second shift came in to work.
The factory, like others in a country where a slowing economy has led to a glut of new vehicles in recent months, has struggled to adapt.
Because the assembly line produces older models, the company could cease their production altogether, Moan said. GM expects to make a decision by the end of July, after reviewing the month’s sales data.
Last week GM ended production of one of the four vehicles it made on the assembly line. Since May, about 350 of 1,500 workers on the line have accepted buyout offers.
Investments in newer vehicles that would have gone to the plant have been redirected elsewhere in Brazil, Moan said, after earlier labour negotiations stalled in Sao Jose.
Reuters noted that the prospect of layoffs at the factory could complicate more than just labour issues for GM in Brazil: the new government programme to cut taxes on industrialised goods, including cars, stipulates that manufacturers maintain the size of their workforce.
But Moan said recent hiring for new production at GM’s other Brazilian factories would offset any layoffs.
GM has postponed an investment of BRL710m (US$348m) in a transmission plant in the southern state of Santa Catarina, originally slated to start production in 2014, because of uncertainty in the European car market.
Moan said the car maker will decide by the beginning of next year if it will go ahead with the factory, which would employ 350 workers.
