Nissan Motor this week said it was prepared to delay the closure of its Barcelona plant by six months if it can reach an agreement with labour unions on compensation for redundant workers.
The automaker announced last May it planned to close the factory as part of a global restructuring plan, resulting in some 3,000 direct job losses and many more among companies that provide components and services to the plant.
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The restructuring plan was announced after the company reported a record consolidated net loss of JPY671.2bn (US6.2bn) for the fiscal year ending on 31 March 2020.
The loss making plant, which has been inactive since Nissan announced its closure in May, is currently scheduled to be permanently shut down at the end of December.
It made pickup trucks and vans mainly for Europe.
The head of Nissan industrial operations in Spain, Frank Torres, said the company was proposing to extend its life by six months, until the end of June 2021, giving more time to workers to recover from the COVID19-induced economic crisis as well as allowing production to resume until June 2021.
In return, Nissan wants to reach an agreement with unions by late July or early August on compensation for workers.
The company is facing costs associated with the closure of the plant estimated at around US$1bn, with some saying they could be as high as US$1.5bn.
Torres warned, if an agreement with unions could not be reached, then Nissan would stick to its original plan of closing the plant at the end of 2020.
He added “we want talk about everything with unions” but insisted the automaker saw no alternative to the eventual plant closure.
