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GM's about-face has angered both Opel workers and European governments. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, union leader and Opel board member Armin Schild blasts GM for mismanagement and says that the US company is uninterested in saving the Opel brand. SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Schild, General Motors has decided not to sell Opel after all, preferring to restructure the German automaker itself. What do Opel employees think of the plan? Armin Schild: GM is going to continue pursuing company policies that have already led to the firm's decline over the last 20 years. Pressure on the employees and on the...

General Motors last night staged a dramatic U-turn by choosing to hold on to its European Opel and Vauxhall subsidiaries in a major snub to Magna International and the German government. The surprise decision by GM places a further question mark over the future of the company’s van plant at Luton, which employs around 1,500 workers, but is likely to safeguard the future of its Ellesmere Port facility, where it employs about 2,000 workers. The 11th-hour volte-face, made during a GM board meeting in Detroit, is understood to have come as a result of the potential threat to the Magna...

US automaker General Motors has called a press conference on Thursday in Berlin to unveil its plans for the German unit Opel, the head of Opel's works committee told German television. The GM briefing would take place at 1230 GMT, Klaus Franz told the public station ZDF, following a GM board meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in the United States. GM negotiator John Smith was to inform the German government of the US group's decision before the news conference. Berlin still officially supports a bid for Opel by the Canadian auto parts maker Magna, backed by the Russian bank Sberbank,...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has run into problems with her attempt to save the troubled German carmaker Opel: The US government doesn't want a consortium featuring Russian investors to take over the GM subsidiary. Thousands of German jobs are hanging in the balance as talks drag on. snip

When Barack Obama, US president, announced his decision to shepherd General Motors into bankruptcy on Monday, Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, was conducting some car industry business of his own. Mr Putin met in Moscow with Siegfried Wolf, co-chief executive of Canada’s Magna International, and German Gref, head of Sberbank, whose groups are due to take a controlling interest in GM’s spun-off European Opel division in a deal to be negotiated in the coming weeks. Two days earlier, when Magna and Sberbank won preferred bidder status over Italy’s Fiat for a joint 55 per cent stake of Opel, Mr Putin...

A deal has been struck to save car manufacturer Vauxhall and Opel, the European wing of car giants General Motors. An agreement was reached in the early hours of Saturday morning between the German government and Magna International, a Canadian car parts maker, that will see the firm take over most of GM Europe. Under the terms of the deal, Germany is expected to provide an immediate loan facility of €1.5 billion (£1.3 billion). However, it is still feared that 2,500 jobs in Germany could be lost and unions in the UK expressed fears that jobs in the UK could...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has revealed the US president helped swing a deal to save carmaker Opel from the imminent bankruptcy of its parent firm. She said Barack Obama helped clear some hurdles threatening the transaction during a phone conversation. Earlier, Germany agreed the deal with Magna International, a Canadian car parts maker, to take over Opel, part of the European wing of US carmaker GM. It should protect Opel if GM files for bankruptcy protection in the US. GM is expected to do this as early as Monday. Marathon talks"I spoke on the phone with the American president yesterday...

German politicians entrusted with the fate of General Motors' Opel business need to show their mettle and set politics aside. The European autos market must shed capacity to preserve Opel's long-term viability in manufacturing mass-market cars. Based on the limited available details on the proposed bids for GM's European subsidiary, Fiat's proposed merger best ensures this path. Though that may mean more job cuts, legislators should support it. Angela Merkel, the German premier, is in a tight spot. The US government deadline for GM to restructure or enter bankruptcy is June 1. Germany must decide before then whether to leave...

German work force at Opel applauded the abrupt departure of Rick Wagoner as chief executive, while Berlin signalled it needs more time to work on a plan to save the GM unit. "The move was overdue," senior Opel labour leader Klaus Franz told Reuters on Monday, welcoming head of operations and former GM Europe president Fritz Henderson as Wagoner's replacement. Henderson -- who oversaw a sweeping restructuring of Opel years ago that resulted in thousands of job cuts when he was head of GM Europe -- made a clear push for a carve out of GM's German brand, according to...

Opel workers rally against GM cuts in Europe5 hours 29 mins ago Christiaan Hetzner Some 15,000 Opel workers rallied on Thursday at the German headquarters of their struggling company, demanding that parent General Motors scrap plans for plant closures in Europe. Skip related content Carrying banners reading "Free Opel" and "Yes we can, even without GM," they called for Opel's independence from the floundering Detroit parent, at company headquarters west of Germany's financial capital Frankfurt. In Sweden, police said 2,500 to 3,000 people marched through Trollhattan, the southwestern town where GM unit Saab has its headquarters. Saab filed for protection...

Germany to ask for Opel bailoutFeb 22 2009 14:30 Berlin - Germany's new economy minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg said in remarks published on Sunday he would lobby for Washington to rescue struggling GM's European unit Opel during a US visit in March. Zu Guttenberg told Bild am Sonntag newspaper he had established an informal US-German working group with American Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and he would use his March visit to hold more meetings with key officials. "It is indispensable that General Motors and Opel consider rapidly... how they want to keep jobs in an economically healthy way," he said...

Organized labor helped elect Barack Obama and now eagerly awaits his promised support for its top priority—a bill that would make it easier to set up union locals. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow unions to create local bargaining units without winning the vote of a majority of workers in a secret ballot. The local unit would be certified if a majority of workers endorsed it by signing an authorization card handed out by union organizers. Fair enough? Not really. The so-called card-check bill would not protect workers and it would not be "free choice." It would strip away...

Regarding Dr. John David's commentary, "Make it Easier to Unionize Workplace": Labor unions certainly have their place in a contemporary American economy, but not at the expense of employee free choice and economic security. Indeed, the Employee Free Choice Act would severely erode the freedom enjoyed by employees for nearly 75 years to make a private, fully-informed decision about whether or not they want a union to represent them. Too often, the losing party in a union election - the company or the union - blames its loss on the opposing party's "coercive and underhanded" tactics. In reality though, the...

Alright so this auto bailout bill is in a holding pattern. But just remember that it doesn't mean it is dead. So here are some facts that should keep you seething ... The Big Three currently pay 85% of union benefits to UAW members ... who aren't even working. Yep. Remember how I told you about the Job Banks for union workers? If a union worker is employed at a plant that closes, the auto makers still pay 85% of their union benefits. Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, says that his company must reduce operating costs ... but his...

“You just sit and you worry,” said Pat Weber, a construction administrator in Fennville who was laid off more than a year ago. “In the last year, I’ve put in for more than 100 jobs. I stopped counting after 110. It’s just so defeating.” All around Fennville and its neighbors here in southwest Michigan, front lawns are peppered with for-sale signs and merchants complain about slow days. But while this remains a beautiful place with none of the obvious blight of Detroit on the other side of the state, residents say the hardship beneath the surface is very real. It...

The New Plan? Cripple Honda! Save Detroit with Card Check! Eliminating the secret ballot and making it easier to organize U.S. Honda and Toyota workers (and imposing contract terms via binding arbitration) would "level the playing field," says Dem. Congressman Tim Ryan. ... Then when Honda and Toyota responded by importing more cars from abroad, we could have import quotas! Eventually the whole automotive sector could be planned by Congress in conjunction with existing business and labor interest groups. Red State has seen the future and it is corporatist. ...12:21 P.M.

Unions are to blame for the Big Three automakers’ problems, according to a television ad meant to stoke public opposition to organized labor’s number one legislative priority. “Steel, auto, airlines. What do these industries all have in common?” asks the ad sponsored by the business-backed Employee Freedom Action Committee, which was active in several hotly contested Senate races this year. “Hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and union bosses that helped put them out of business.” The advertisement urges people to fight the Employee Free Choice Act, which unions hope will be taken up quickly by the Democratic Congress and...

President-elect Barack Obama, who co-sponsored the misleadingly titled Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate in 2007, has vowed that the measure, called “Card Check,” will be the law of the land once he’s in office. Given the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, if Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss loses Georgia’s runoff election on Dec. 2, Card Check probably will become law—and that would be terrible news for Americans who want to keep their jobs. Card Check would do away with the present secret ballot process used by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) when employees vote on whether to...

There is a curiously dated logic in unions insisting that Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which belies the back and forth accusatory rhetoric of intimidation between business and big labor. There are two principal methods for employees to join and command employers to recognize their union's collective bargaining request. First: Company workers can get at least 30 percent of their colleagues to sign petition cards requesting representation, send the cards to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and have them oversee a secret ballot election. Second: If more than half of the workers sign up for representation, a...

Who killed the U.S. auto industry? To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans prepared and built for the future. I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II. As far back as the 1950s, an intellectual elite that produces mostly methane had its knives...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic leaders in Congress sidetracked legislation to bail out the auto industry Thursday and demanded the Big Three develop a plan assuring the money would make them economically viable. "Until they show us the plan, we cannot show them the money," Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a hastily called news conference in the Capitol. She and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Congress would return to work in early December to vote on legislation if General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC produce an acceptable plan. The decision averted a likely defeat of...

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner said Democrats' use of secret ballots to chose its leadership was ironic because the party wants to nix workers' rights to a secret voting in deciding whether to unionize. "The secret ballot election is a cornerstone of our American democracy," Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Thursday. "If it is good enough for House Democrats to rely on during today's high-stakes vote, shouldn't it be good enough for millions of American workers across America who value their workplace privacy?" He vowed Republicans would stand firmly against the Democrat's "card-check" legislation - dubbed the Employee Free...

DETROIT, Nov 20 (Reuters) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said on Thursday that lawmakers need to take immediate action on a $25 billion bridge loan bill to support the U.S. automakers or one or more could fail. Gettelfinger, who testified on Tuesday and Wednesday to U.S. congressional committees in support of the loans, said he would not comment on a possible compromise bill reached by Democratic and Republican senators until details were known. When told that one detail might be that the automakers would have to provide a strategic plan to get access to the money, Gettelfinger said...

TALEGAON, India: General Motors Corp. opened a second plant in India on Tuesday, boosting its production capacity from 85,000 to 225,000 vehicles a year. The factory is part of GM's aggressive push into emerging markets, which have helped cushion the beleaguered auto giant from falling sales in the developed world. It also furthers the Indian government's ambition to turn the country into a manufacturing hub for small vehicles. "We believe India in three to four years will be a significant source of profit for us," said GM Asia Pacific President Nick Reilly. The first car — a pint-sized red Chevrolet...

The United Auto Workers union called on Congress and the Bush administration to get a loan to U.S. automakers to prevent their collapse before the legislature adjourns Friday. "Congress must not adjourn with the Bush administration in place without an agreement," said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. "If there's no action, we could see the collapse of one or more domestic auto companies by the end of year." Gettelfinger said the cost of not acting would be devastating for the industry's employees and the U.S. economy. "The current recession that we're in would be made much worse," he added, saying states...

The Big Three automakers’ chief executives testified before Congress today, blaming the credit crisis for their downfall. But Richard Wagoner, CEO of General Motors (GM: 2.11, -0.68, -24.37%) did not use the credit crisis as an excuse for the company’s poor profits when he wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal in December 2005. In his opinion piece, which came amidst record sales, he blamed not the credit crisis, but a kaleidoscope of other reasons, including “intense” foreign competition, soaring gas prices in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and high benefit costs for the automakers’ downfall. And in his...

WASHINGTON -- A full-court effort by U.S. auto makers to secure federal aid appeared to be on the rocks after the companies failed to convince lawmakers of the urgent need for a rescue. Michigan Rep. Dale Kildee, Chrysler Chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli, GM Chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger and Michigan Rep. Sandy Levin (left to right) prior to a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill at which the auto makers made their case for federal assistance. Late Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid backed away from efforts to force a vote this week on a Democratic-backed...

The chances of the US Congress quickly approving a bill to save the "Big Three" car manufacturers are said to be "remote" but one economist warned that their collapse could shave 4pc off America's gross domestic product next year. Democrat Senator Chris Dodd, who chairs the influential Senate banking committee, believes that the chances of Congress approving a new bill this week to advance up to $25bn in lifeline funding to Ford, General Motors and Chrysler are slim. "I'm anxious to see something happen," said Mr Dodd, who on Tuesday heard pleas for the money from the leaders of the...

Barney Frank favors bailing out the Detroit automakers over letting them go into bankruptcy. Chief among his concerns is that bankruptcy might "bust" the unions. You know, those organizations whose contract demands have put Detroit on the brink of extinction. The Massachusetts Dem, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was interviewed by Maggie Rodriguez on today's Early Show. He appeared alongside Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Al.), ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, who favors letting the automakers reorganize under Chapter 11. View video here.

There’s a big push on in Washington to bail out the Big Three automobile companies. It’s the usual “crisis” scenario where scare headlines predict woe and economic gloom if something isn’t done NOW!But would a bailout of the Big Three actually solve their problems? No. But it would make sure unions which have held these companies hostage to a failing business model don’t get hurt.Consider this: GM also famously spends over $1,600 per vehicle on the healthcare costs of current and retired U.S. workers while Toyota pays about $200 per vehicle. Although GM also pays about another $1,000 per vehicle...

DETROIT: When Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Automobile Workers union, appears this week at congressional hearings to help make the case for the Detroit automakers getting emergency U.S. government aid, he wants lawmakers to know what he believes is at stake. "It wouldn't be just one company failing here," Gettelfinger said in an interview. "It would be all three going down." He might as well add the UAW. The union's membership at General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler has been nearly halved to 139,000 workers in the past three years, and it continues to shrink with every new plant...

WASHINGTON: As top Detroit auto executives prepared to make their most intense plea for aid to Congress on Tuesday, General Motors also pleaded Monday for a billion-euro credit guarantee from the German government to help its Opel subsidiary. The request, greeted with some skepticism in Germany - Chancellor Angela Merkel promised a reply by Christmas - demonstrated how what had been building as a Washington drama involving efforts to save the venerable Detroit auto industry was fast becoming a story about how the international industry might be transformed by the spreading financial crisis. Governments around the world, from Tokyo to...

FRANKFURT, March 4 - General Motors' (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) German unit Adam Opel edged out Swedish brand Saab and won a crucial contract to build the next generation of GM mid-sized cars in Europe, the world's biggest automaker said on Friday. The fight to secure thousands of jobs in Europe's struggling auto sector had pitted the Opel plant in Ruesselsheim, Germany, against the Saab factory in Trollhattan, Sweden. Both wanted to make the successors to the Opel Vectra and the Saab 9-3 models starting in 2008. After months of review and amid pay concessions from workers at both plants,...

Monday February 21, 7:25 am ET Opel Plant in Germany to Halt Production During Bush Visit, Citing Transport Disruptions BERLIN (AP) -- General Motors Corp.'s German unit said Monday it will halt production at its biggest plant during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Germany this week, which is expected to cause major transport disruptions. Major highways will be closed and rail services interrupted during Bush's visit Wednesday to the cities of Mainz and Wiesbaden, west of Frankfurt. As a result, Adam Opel AG told some 5,000 workers scheduled to work two shifts at its Ruesselsheim plant outside Frankfurt...

Germany may bear brunt of GM plan Workers churning out cars at Opel's plant in northwestern Germany have been troubled lately. “You really don't like to go in there,“ says Hans Ahsel, one of the workers in Bochum. That is understandable. For the past week, the numbers turning up in newspapers about the Opel's future have resembled some sort of grim journalistic auction. At one point, these reports said 10,000 jobs at GM Europe would be slashed by the loss-plagued automaker. Then, they narrowed the focus and said 6,000 to 7,000 of those could come out of Opel's four plants...

Opel Zafira From Gliwice The next-generation Zafira will be manufactured in the second half of this year in the Opel factory in Gliwice. The new car will be also produced in the Opel plant in Bochum, Germany. The Zafira is the third model, after Agila and Astra Classic II, from Gliwice. Production will take place in a three-shift system and the plant's production capacity will be fully used. The company also plans to increase employment by 700. Zafira will be sold both in Poland and abroad. "Not only competitive labor costs, but first and foremost high quality, record time in...

General Motors, the US carmaker, angered German trade unions on Friday by announcing that its Opel subsidiary would expand production of its new Zafira family car in Poland rather than at Rüsselsheim, its main German factory. The announcement comes a week after GM reorganised its European operations, which also include the Saab and Vauxhall brands, to centralise control in Zürich, Switzerland. Opel said its works in Gliwice, Poland, offered "significant competitive advantages" compared with the group's other production facilities. Production of the Zafira in Gliwice will be in addition to that in Bochum, Germany, it said. The expansion by GM...

RUESSELSHEIM - German carmaker Opel confirmed a report Friday that the company plans to partly produce its new Zafira van at a General Motors plant in Poland. A spokesman at the GM subsidiary in Ruesselsheim confirmed a report in the business daily Handelsblatt about Opel’s plans, which personnel director Norbet Kuepper revealed to company employees at a recent meeting. Some of the production of the Zafira is now foreseen for the GM factory in Gliwice. An Opel statement Friday said the decision was the “result of a comprehensive analysis of all the relevant fields of business” in which Gliwice was...