Compromise with workforce: opel to stay in the ruhr region
Car production will be discontinued at the end of 2014, but the opel distribution center will be permanently maintained against the original plan with a major investment of 60 million euros and expanded by 265 to 700 jobs. So opel is staying in the ruhr area city.
At least 200 of the 3,300 remaining opel employees in bochum are also to receive offers at other plants. There is a two-year job bursary, which may be extended by one year, and severance packages for departing employees, which an opel spokesman described as "very fair and attractive". Representatives of opel and IG metall agreed on corresponding key points on sunday. They are to be worked out into a collective bargaining agreement in the coming days, as both sides announced on monday.
The opel spokesman did not want to comment on the total cost of the package. According to experts, however, they are clearly in the three-digit million range. IG metall district manager knut giesler said: "it is bitter for the people that no more aircraft will be built in bochum beyond the end of 2014."This could no longer be prevented with the social collective agreement. However, a package has been reached in the negotiations that includes, among other things, a "retirement bridge" for employees. Opel employees born in 1959 and older will receive special offers to bridge the gap until retirement.
The opel employees in bochum, known as militant, were the only ones in germany to reject the company’s proposed restructuring collective bargaining agreement this spring. They did not want to accept the end of production. The zafira family van is currently being built in bochum. After that, the company’s management had declared commitments for the site to be null and void. For a short time, this threatened the complete withdrawal of the company from the city. For the goods distribution center, too, continued operation was only contractually secured until february 2016.
In the meantime, the dispute over the location had been fought out with hardball and mutual accusations. The head of the bochum works council, rainer einenkel, had even filed a lawsuit against opel. Einenkel accuses the automaker of not having correctly informed the supervisory board about its plans to relocate production of the zafira to hesse at the end of 2014. The original date of 5. December the planned date for the negotiations was postponed to 28 december. The purchase price was postponed until january 2014, as the district court of darmstadt also announced on monday.
The opelwerk in bochum was founded in 1963 as a structural change project on former coal mine land and employed around 20,000 people at its peak. Now, after the end of car production, a development company "bochum perspective 2022" is to market the 1.7 million square meters of rough factory space – the equivalent of 250 soccer fields – with a special emphasis on small and medium-sized enterprises. According to the north rhine-westphalia ministry of economics, there is a great deal of investor interest in this area.
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