Carmaker Opel announces new investments in German plants

BERLIN, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Embattled carmaker Opel announced on Wednesday that it will shortly present concrete plans for fresh investments in its German plants.

Speaking at Opel's Ruesselsheim headquarters, chief executive officer Michael Lohscheller said that his company would "invest in all German plants."

Lohscheller expanded guarantees offered to staff about future production when it was announced that the new Opel "Grandland" model would be built at its Eisenach plant.

Following its acquisition by the French PSA Group, Opel managers have been locked in a long-standing dispute with workers sparked by far-reaching corporate restructuring plans. Lohscheller emphasized that concessions recently offered by staff which finally resolved the widely-publicized conflict over the future of the carmaker formed the basis for Wednesday's announcement.

"We keep all plants in Germany and Europe and make all plants competitive," Lohscheller said. "Opel will stay German."

Among others, the basic framework for restructuring measures agreed by employer and employee representatives includes plans to reduce staffing levels by 3,700 out of a total of 18,000 Opel jobs in Germany and temporarily postpone wage increases. In exchange, the remaining staff have been offered employment guarantees until 2023.

Wolfgang Schaefer-Klug, the president of the Opel workers' council, described the compromise as acceptable to staff and "irrevocably binding."

He highlighted that 3,600 out of the planned 3,700 job loses had already been achieved on a voluntary basis through part-time arrangements and severance payments.

As a consequence, Schaefer-Klug expressed confidence that the restructuring of Opel was "nearly complete." The concrete details of the investment plans would be set out in collective wage agreements as is usual under Germany's "social partnership" model of industrial relations. Enditem