Management and union leaders at Vauxhall are stepping up their efforts to find a new model or manufacturing partner for the company’s Luton plant, where the Vivaro van is made, after announcing more than 350 job cuts at the operation.
A spokesman for General Motors (GM), Vauxhall’s American owner, said that the company was hoping to secure 354 voluntary redundancies from the workforce of 1,500 in Luton “to right-size the business in line with the 2010 forecast production volume”.
“The GM manufacturing facility in Luton has now begun its own period of consultation between unions and local GM management,” he said. Negotiations with staff are due to take place to determine which jobs should go at the plant’s operations.
The Luton workers, who produce the Vivaro van in a joint venture with Renault, the French carmaker, were informed of the move yesterday, but the cuts, which are the equivalent of cancelling one shift at the plant, had long been expected.
Van sales have been hit particularly hard by the recession. The Government’s scrappage scheme, which helped to increase the sales of cars, did little to help the light commercial vehicles sector.
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According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, sales of vehicles weighing under 3½ tonnes fell 39 per cent in the first ten months of this year.
Under GM’s deal with Renault, the French company is contracted to take 30,000 vans from Luton each year until 2012.
Unite, the union representing the majority of workers at the plant, is working with management to find a new model to keep the plant open beyond that year.
The cuts at Luton are part of a plan by GM to cut 9,000 jobs from its Opel and Vauxhall plants thoughout Europe in a €3.3 billion (£3 billion) restructuring plan for which it hopes to gain funding from European governments.
Britain has said that it would be willing to provide funding to secure the future of the two Vauxhall plants in the UK.
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GM has said that the 2,500 jobs at Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire were safe. It is seeking to expand production of its new Astra car there, with the introduction of an extra shift in 2011.
A company spokesman said that Reinald Hoben, head of manufacturing operations, had started a tour of Opel’s European plants with details of cuts expected at each unit.
It is understood that the company will cut about 5,000 jobs in Germany, 2,300 from its Antwerp plant in Belgium and 900 from its Zaragoza plant in Spain.
The American car company had shocked Germany and other European countries this month by abruptly reversing the planned sale of a majority stake in Opel to a consortium comprising Magna International, the Canadian car parts maker, and Sberbank, the Russian lender.
General Motors holds last-gasp talks on Saab
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The General Motors board in the United States was meeting last night and today to discuss the future of its Saab operations in Sweden (Alexandra Frean writes).
Last week Koenigsegg, a Swedish-based speciality carmaker, pulled out of a deal to buy Saab.
Officials from Saab and the Swedish Government were in Detroit in a final attempt to help GM to find a solution for the troubled marque. GM’s board is expected to say today whether it will try to find another buyer or close it.
Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings has expressed an interest in Saab. Other possible bidders are thought to include Renco Group, the New York-based private equity firm, and Merbanco, a Wyoming-based bank.