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...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...
...German government has asked GM to come up with a restructuring plan as quickly as possible. Government sources said only then would Berlin decide whether GM would be eligible for any of the $6.7 billion in state aid that Germany had offered to Magna. Union leaders want the government to stand firm and not send any German taxpayer money across the Atlantic. But the car giant is prepared to play hardball too, reminding German workers that the insolvency of its entire European operation is still an option. "Failure to reach the restructuring that is needed would result in the operation...
...Merkel does have one option left: to take her complaints about GM straight to the top. Government sources said on Thursday that she had spoken to President Barack Obama about the situation on Wednesday night. Obama reassured Merkel that he had not been involved in GM's decision to back out of the sale. (See TIME's photo-essay "GM's Eight Great Hopes...
...Although Merkel is angry now, the timing of the news could have been worse - GM could have changed its mind before the Sept. 27 parliamentary polls. Such a move could have cost Merkel's party the election, which means she could have missed that trip to Washington to address Congress...