Agreement on Restructuring of Opel Plant in Bochum

- Plant management and works council agree on additional incentives for volunteers
- Staff reductions to take place as planned, transmission plant to continue to end of 2013
- Marks end of program to adapt capacity in European plants

Rüsselsheim/Bochum. A breakthrough has been reached in efforts to make the Opel Bochum plant more efficient and to secure its future. Plant management and works council concluded a restructuring agreement that allows for the necessary job level reductions to take place quickly and socially responsibly as planned.

“With this agreement Opel reaches the end point of the company’s restructuring, which started early 2010 with the premise of making substantial investments in our products as well as adjusting capacity in our European plants,” said Karl-Friedrich Stracke, CEO of Opel/Vauxhall. “We are on the right track with our products, and our continuously increasing market share across Europe is a very encouraging sign,” added Stracke. “We will work even more intensively to further strengthen the company and the Opel brand.”

For Bochum, the agreement means that the plant can now concentrate on the production launch of the new Zafira, which comes to market this year. The flexible seven-seat van will be built exclusively in , where Opel is investing 175 million euro in new production facilities and machinery.

Plant management and works council in Bochum enlisted the assistance of an arbitration committee, as is called for in the Works Constitution Act. The parties reached an agreement after several rounds of negotiations.

As planned, Opel is cutting 1,800 jobs in . At the beginning of the restructuring, the plant employed 4,600 people, 600 of whom chose to leave in 2010. While further staff reductions are being made this year, transmission production will continue with around 300 employees until the end of 2013 due to high export demands. Originally, transmission production was to be closed down at the end of 2011.

The company is also making permanent jobs available for more than 300 employees in the Rüsselsheim plant and the . In the last weeks, around 100 Bochum employees have already agreed to accept that offer and permanently move to other Opel sites. To financially ease the move to the Rhein-Main area, Opel is offering an increased mobility premium.

In addition, Opel is offering employees who voluntarily leave the company or move to other Opel locations by the cutoff date of July 15, 2011 further incentives. Outplacement agencies will be established to help employees find new employment. Plant director Manfred Gellrich welcomes the agreements: “We have tough negotiations behind us and are completing the plant restructuring as planned. The agreement now reached is a good solution for securing the future of the Bochum plant in the long term.”