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Bochum Blues

German Opel Workers Fear for Jobs amid GM Crisis

By Karsten Stumm

Uncertainty looms large at the Opel car factory in Bochum. The future of thousands of jobs hangs in the balance as struggling parent company General Motors seeks to slash costs. But for the workers at the Bochum plant, uncertainty is nothing new.

It's two o'clock in the afternoon at the sprawling Opel plant in Bochum, in the northwest of Germany. A new shift is starting and small groups of men and women exit the car factory which General Motors, its parent company, may soon close for good. But outside in the winter sunshine, most workers refuse to give in to despondency about their uncertain future.

As they hurry to their cars, passing television crews and gaggles of journalists, few want to talk. After all, this is not the first time that reporters have flooded their workplace. Five years ago, a strike against a mooted closure stalled production lines for five whole days; in the end, the threatened closure never happened. Those memories are still fresh for the Opel workers, clad in their grey overalls.

"What is there to say right now?" asked one man who has worked for Opel for eight years but preferred not to be named. "If we were to go on strike now, the Americans would close the plant straight away. So it's a matter of keeping our mouths closed and getting on with our jobs. I've got a family. I need the plant. I need the money."

And that sentiment is typical, according to Thomas Bender, who is distributing flyers from the MLPD communist party which wants the workers to go on strike. "If there is a time to fight, then it's now," said Bender. "There's no hope that the city of Bochum will offer any help."

Indeed, local politicans are far from optimistic. "We have to assume that our plant in the near future will employ fewer people than it does today. We are in the midst of a crisis which we cannot solve on our own," said Dieter Fleskes, a local politician who belongs to the center-left Social Democrats.

'Head in the Noose'

"There's no question that Bochum has experience with crises and that it has always managed to remove its head from the noose in the nick of time, " said Lothar Gräfingholt, a Christian Democratic politician. "But this situation could be more dangerous than ever before."

They are both familiar with times of trouble. Bochum has experienced a series of economic setbacks. Last year the Finnish mobile company Nokia closed its plant in Bochum and moved production to Romania -- even though the German plant had been profitable. Meanwhile, in recent years the future of the Opel plant has repeatedly hung in the balance. And now the American company General Motors is threatening to axe some 26,000 jobs at overseas units, Opel in Bochum being just one of many GM plants worldwide.

At present Opel in Bochum employs some 5,300 people, but if jobs at its suppliers are taken into account, the number of workers affected could rise to at least 12,000. "If Opel closes here we would have a problem for the whole region, not just Bochum," warns Fleskes.

Tooth and Nail

But at the town hall it is business as usual. The issue of what will happen at the plant did not even make it on to the agenda of a committee meeting on Wednesday. "It's a joke that people here seem to be continuing as if everything was normal," said Jens Lücking of the business-friendy Free Democratic Party.

And the town's economic experts are keeping quiet. After all, as CDU politician Gräfingholt says, it doesn't have the capital to bail out the Opel plant, meaning its hands are tied. "We don't have the money to rescue the factory. Here we will be happy to get around €40 million from the national stimulus package but Bochum's list of pending investments amounts to some €340 million," he said. "It will be fought over tooth and nail."

So instead the Opel workers are placing their hope in the national government. "There must be a solution with a cash injection from the state. It would be just for the transition period. After all, here we build good cars at sensible prices. I think then we could all work here until we reach retirement," said Rolf Regalski who works in the engine section of the plant. "What applies for banks should also apply to us," he said, referring to Germany's massive financial bail out package.

And such comments are common currency in Bochum, where pride in the Opel plant is strong. The auto company, which moved to Bochum in the 1970s, is considered an important prop for the local economy.

But as the SPD's Fleske says, the town does not rely on cars alone. "Some 70 percent of economic activity is in the services sector. So even in the worst-case scenario, the lights are not going to go out completely here," he said. "But we do need our industrial base."