General Motors - OPEL Company Agreement - Main Results

1. On 7th of March, a company agreement (that is an agreement between works council and management, not an collective agreement !) was signed. The time of validity of that contract lasts until 31st of December 2010.

2. Safeguarding employment:

The new contract stipulates: no dismissals from the 7th of March 2005 until the 31st of December 2010!
Opel commits itself to an annual offer of 260 places for apprentices.

But the old reduction plan, agreed upon in a former contract, will be put into practice. To recall: On 8th of December 2004, works council and management agreed upon a reduction of the work force in a company agreement. Special measures were offered and different ways are used to reduce the workforce: i.e. by severance pay (4500 employees take that offer); by early retirement etc. At the end, approximately 9000 jobs get lost in the different plants of OPEL Germany (all plants in Germany).

3. Working time: 35 hours but more flexibility

The contract allows a “time corridor” of 30 to 40 working hours weekly. But at an average the working time has to be 35 hours.

4. Wages and salaries: reduction without touching the collective agreement

To explain the special situation: OPEL pays wages and salaries which are approximately 15 to 18 per cent above the comparable level of the collective agreement. Now, they are melting away big parts of that extra payment. But the contract says explicitly: wages and salaries are not allowed to fall below the level given by the collective agreement. In detail:

collectively agreed pay increases of 2004 and 2005 will be offset by an decrease of extra pay;
forthcoming pay increases for the period 2006 until 2010 will be partly offset by an annual decrease of extra pay of 1 per cent.
in some plants exist special agreements but all contain the stipulation: wages and salaries are not allowed to fall below the level given by the collective agreement!

Christmas bonus: Annual additional payment of 70 per cent of the regular monthly income - it was 100 per cent before. (To compare: Christmas Bonus on basis of collective agreement amounts to 55 per cent).
The new company contract concedes the possibility of an additional performance-related annual extra pay up to 30 per cent of a regular monthly income.

5. Opel commitment to invest

OPEL/VAUXHALL will introduce up to 30 new models (model innovations etc.) until the end of 2010.

Rüsselsheim: development and production of new compact-model (ASTRA)

Bochum: Investment of 20 Mio US $ in order to set up the technical standard for new products.

Kaiserslautern: Production of car components in the long run only with new partners viable (joint venture? sale? ). But Opel commits itself to buy the components from Kaiserslautern, in order to stabilize employment there.

6. Overall cost reduction:

All the different measures undertaken until 2010 are supposed to result in an annual cost saving of about 500 Mio €.