GM leaders rush to Germany
• Proposed sale of Opel to France’s PSA runs up against push-back from chancellor and unions over job-loss fears
General Motors (GM) CEO Mary Barra has flown to Germany to alleviate concerns that her proposal to sell Opel to PSA, the maker of Peugeot and Citroën cars, could lead to job cuts.
Germany’s political and labour leaders vowed to protect the brand’s workforce.
Barra and GM president Dan Ammann “are in Russelsheim for talks with the Opel team”, the vehicle maker said on Wednesday, one day after Bloomberg broke the news that the marque may be sold to PSA.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government was quick to say that any sale must come with guarantees to retain workers.
“The company carries responsibility for the sites, the development centre and securing employment,” German Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said in a statement. “This is my clear expectation regarding General Motors.”
A combination would create a manufacturer with about 16% of the European car market, pushing past Renault to become the region’s second-biggest vehicle group after Volkswagen. A deal would also be the second run at linking the two massmarket car makers. Any renewed effort is likely to centre on finding ways to cut costs — and ultimately jobs — because the two have product offerings.
Zypries called it “unacceptable” that GM discussed a possible Opel sale without first speaking with the works council, labour unions and the state government in Hesse, where Opel is based. The manufacturer has three plants in Germany and the future of jobs at the sites could become a topic in the federal election in 2017.
“I assume that the chancellor in discussions with Peugeot will insist on the fact that it’s important to keep jobs primarily in Germany,” Franz Josef Jung, a legislator from the chancellor’s Christian Democrats whose constituency is home to Opel’s headquarters, said in an interview. Jung previously ran the defence and labour ministries.
Peugeot shares dropped as much as 3.1% on Wednesday and were trading 1.8% lower at €18.36 at 11.37am in Frankfurt.
GM closed 4.8% higher in New York on Tuesday.
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Germany’s IG Metall labour union and Opel’s works council said they were caught by surprise with news of the potential sale to PSA. Any such talks without their consent would be “an unprecedented violation of all German and European codetermination rights”, the two said in a joint statement.
“Almost all experts say that with this deal now being prepared between the almost state-owned conglomerate and Opel that especially the German Opel plants may be on the losing side,” Rainer Einenkel, former works council chief at Opel’s Bochum plant, said on Deutschlandfunk radio. “It’s to be assumed that the German plants are under acute threat.”
The Bochum plant was shut down in December 2014.
Opel employees must get swift clarity about the future of production sites, Hesse Economy Minister Tarek Al-Wazir said on Tuesday.
Hesse Prime Minister Volker Bouffier said earlier that he would seek talks with company management with a view to securing jobs and keeping Opel’s development centre — “the core, the most important part of Opel” — in Russelsheim, outside Frankfurt.
A Peugeot union representative expressed support for deeper co-operation between the two car makers. The French manufacturer’s unions were not concerned about job losses because PSA had signed a deal in 2016 that included employment guarantees, CFE-CGC union representative Jacques Mazzolini said.