**Opel workers in Germany are going on strike later to protest against US parent company General Motors’ decision not to sell its European operations.**GM’s decision came just days before the agreed sale of a majority stake in Opel and Vauxhall to car parts maker Magna and Russian bank Sberbank.
Under that agreement, the German union had been promised that no factories would be closed.
German workers now fear GM will close plants in Germany and cut more jobs.
GM has said it plans to cut some 10,000 jobs as part of a restructuring of its European operations, though it has not yet said anything about where the cuts will come and it has not commented on whether or not factories will be closed down.
However, GM has said that its plan is similar, though not identical, to the one hammered out with Magna and Sberbank.
‘Defending workers’
German workers fear that the GM plan will lead to more job cuts in Germany and feel cheated by the US automotive giant.
“They led us all around by our noses,” said Michael Kleinmann, a worker at the Opel plant in Ruesselsheim. “They’re not interested in the fate of individuals.”
Opel’s chief employee representative, Klaus Franz, said: “We won’t help shape the way back to General Motors. Instead, we’ll take up our classic function of defending the workers.”
However, workers in the UK and Poland have welcomed GM’s decision.
“The future is still uncertain, but our fear is smaller,” said Miroslaw Rzezniczek, a Solidarity union official at the Gliwice plant in Poland.
John Featherstone, a Unite union official at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant in the UK, said: “I am pleased we will be dealing with GM because we know them and we understand their culture - and they know us.”