US auto giant General Motors, owner of the German brand Opel, might extend work suspensions to all its European plants for several weeks, a press report said on Wednesday.
Rainer Einenkel, a union official at the Opel plant in western Bochum, was quoted by the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper as saying that GM was mulling a plant shutdown for the two last weeks in November and from December 15 until the end of the year.
An Opel spokesman told AFP: “We will react in a flexible manner when it is necessary. For now, we know nothing.”
A member of the group's works committee confirmed the report to AFP however.
A decision could reportedly be taken in early November
Early this month, the group said that effects of the international financial crisis and economic slowdown had led it to interrupt production at two German plants that employ more than 6,500 people.
GM wants to reduce output by 40,000 vehicles by the end of the year. The group's European boss, Carl-Peter Forster, said sales of its main models in Europe had fallen by 30 percent.
In Strasbourg, eastern France, unions have also said that a plant is to close down for 19 days until January 2.
Meanwhile, another German press report said the auto parts maker Schaeffler, which owns much of compatriot Continental, will also cut output.
“We are reorganising production, we will have to reduce part of it,” the business daily Handelsblatt quoted a Schaeffler spokesman as saying.
The company could also adjust its workforce, which includes 4,000 part-time workers.
Bavarian-based Schaeffler does 60 percent of its business with car makers like BMW,
