Workers at a Portuguese General Motors plant went on strike on Tuesday as concerns grew that the carmaker would shut the factory to cut costs, union officials told Reuters.
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“We carried out a first stoppage and will do more through the day,” Paulo Vicente, head of the workers’ commission at the factory about 30 miles (50km) northeast of Lisbon told the news agency.
European labour leaders at GM said they were also planning a wave of strikes to protest what they say is a drive to shift output and jobs away from expensive western European plants.
Reuters said GM’s works council and Germany’s IG Metall metalworkers’ union expect GM to announce soon that it is shutting its Azambuja plant in Portugal, although GM insisted on Tuesday that it had not yet decided on this.
The strike action came on the same day GM chief executive Rick Wagoner was in Russia to break ground on a new GM plant there.
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By GlobalData“All the signs point to this (Azambuja closure) and it is no use waiting until the company has set this in stone,” Armin Schild, head of the IG Metall union branch in the Frankfurt region told Reuters. “We want to influence the decision but we fear that in the days ahead the management of GM Europe will announce the closure of Azambuja.”
He reportedly said GM workers in Germany would later this week refuse to carry out approved overtime and special shifts, while all GM plants in Europe would start strikes in the next two weeks.
“I think they will not be able to play one plant off against another,” Schild told the news agency, noting even “favoured” plants such as Zaragoza in Spain and Eisenach in Germany would take part.
Reuters said that a meeting on Monday failed to bring labour and management closer on GM’s demands that Azambuja close a productivity gap that it says makes building Astra Combo delivery vans there EUR500 per vehicle more expensive than at other potential manufacturing sites.
Another meeting is set for Wednesday, but labour was already treating Azambuja’s closure as inevitable, the report added.
“We do not have a decision (on closing the plant) and I cannot tell you exactly when we will have a decision,” a GM spokesman in Portugal told Reuters, noting the company was still in talks with labour and the Portuguese government.
The news agency added that labour officials expect GM to announce soon a deal to build entry-level Chevrolet vehicles at a joint venture with Polish carmaker FSO at a plant near Warsaw, adding to overcapacity in a small car segment featuring the Opel Corsa.
This in turn could limit production volumes for GM cars made in western Europe and make productivity there suffer, boosting pressure for more plant closures, Reuters suggested.
