Saab says work will continue during this weekend as it urgently seeks to placate unions, whose November salaries are overdue, and suppliers who remain unpaid.
Unions could file a claim for overdue wages with Saab, which has also updated its suppliers today (2 December) as they seek to reclaim around EUR150m (US$202m) in unpaid bills.
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“The work continues into [the] weekend – day and night,” a Saab spokesman in Sweden told just-auto. “For the suppliers, it is the same thing, we keep them informed.
“We sent them [suppliers] information today – at this point we just inform them we do not have to much other than we are working very hard to find a solution. We [also] have continuous discussions with the unions and they have to do what they have to do legally. They also know what is at stake here.”
Saab’s administrator, Guy Lofalk, has been in the US this week meeting General Motors, which has objected to a 100% takeover by Youngman (60%) and Pang Da (40%), to see if a way can be found through the ownership conundrum but the automaker’s far more pressing concern is to how to pay its staff.
Saab CEO Victor Muller was in Stockholm yesterday ahead of an appearance on Swedish television this evening, while “one of the Chinese” companies was also in the capital.
“We know we have to act very fast,” said the Saab spokesman. “The reorganiser [Lofalk] has to take [his] decision, he has to see it that we stay in the law.
“First of all we need to pay suppliers and for the reorganiser to see there is a possibility to get money in the company and to continue reorganisation.”
