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Rage against GM over 10,000 planned job cuts at Opel

BERLIN: Angry German workers protested Thursday over General Motors’ shock refusal to sell its European unit Opel and plans to cut 10,000 jobs, moves slammed as a slap in the face for Chancellor Angela Merkel. GM wants to slash costs by 30 percent at Opel, which would mean the elimination of about one-fifth a workforce of around 50,000, GM vice president John Smith told a telephone news conference. “Opel — the big piss-take,” screamed the front-page headline of the mass-selling Bild newspaper. “The Americans duped everyone.” The company warned employees and unions that it could still allow Opel to flounder if the workforce upholds its threat to refuse wage concessions — a move blasted as “blackmail” Thursday by the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung. It estimated it would need 3.0 billion euros or $4.5 billion in state aid, and was nevertheless confident it could secure the sum from Germany and other European countries where Opel and the British Vauxhall unit have plants. The announcements came a day after GM, which was struggling with a bankruptcy reorganisation backed by the US and Canadian governments, stunned the auto sector by abandoning the agreed plan to sell Opel to Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna and state-owned Russian bank Sberbank. afp

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