Word: gm
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...GM's decision to back out of the sale of its European operations this week was a huge embarrassment for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She had thrown her weight behind the bid by the Canadian-Austrian car-parts maker Magna and its Russian partner, Sberbank, to buy Opel and Vauxhall from the beginning, seeing it as the best way to save German jobs and offering both sides billions of dollars in loan guarantees to grease the wheels. Before GM made its sudden U-turn on Nov. 3, Merkel had also been riding high. She was coming off an electoral victory...
...German Economy Minister, Rainer Brüderle, summed up the mood as he arrived at a cabinet meeting in Berlin on Wednesday: "The behavior of General Motors toward Germany is totally unacceptable. We won't let GM put us under any pressure." But at this point, can the German government or unions really do anything about it? Can they punish GM or at least make things difficult for the manufacturer? Will they be able to protect the 25,000 Germans employed by the company? (See the most exciting cars...
...least one thing is clear: the German government wants GM to pay back the $2.2 billion bridge loan that Berlin gave it a few months ago to keep Opel's business afloat. Jürgen Reinholz, the Economy Minister of the eastern state of Thuringia, says GM will likely do this by the end of November. But a huge question for Merkel is whether GM will now receive any of the $6.7 billion in loans the government had previously promised to Magna to seal the deal. The pledge had raised alarm bells in Britain, Belgium and Spain, where leaders feared...
...Opel workers ratcheted up the pressure on GM by going on strike on Thursday. "It's a black day for Opel," says Klaus Franz, leader of the company's works council. "The strikes will start in Germany, and then they'll spread across Europe on Friday." Thousands of workers gathered at the carmaker's plant in Rüsselsheim to vent their anger at the aborted sale. Roland Koch, governor of the state of Hesse, told the workers that GM couldn't be trusted and that he would fight to save every German job. The strike coincided with GM...
...Franz said two Opel factories in Germany and one in Belgium are now threatened with closure under GM's new restructuring plan. In the negotiations with Magna, the unions had won promises from the company that all four Opel factories in Germany would remain open, despite the fact that it planned to cut about 4,500 jobs in the country. The powerful IG Metall union, which represents about 3 million autoworkers and electrical and engineering employees, says it won't back down from that demand. But now that the Magna deal is dead, the unions don't have much leverage...