Germany in decline - Opel factory in Bochum closed

[Albert Ross]

I work at a Vauxhall dealer. Worryingly, this might not mean less warranty work, as most vehicles produced there, were the better ones. Also, on the "All Vauxhalls are shit" bandwagon, I bought a replacement "modern" last year, as my Mk2 Focus was starting to deteriorate beyond my skills (Bodywork modifications by Wife) and needing a set of wheels and tyres. I had 3 cars lined up. All within £500 of each other. 10 plate Astra Elite 2.0 CDTI Auto. 13,000 on the clock. Alfa Giulietta Lusso manual, Etna Black with Red Leather and full glass roof. 26,000 on the clock. 58 plate Volvo V50 SE Lux. 2.0D Powershift. 63,000 on the clock. I did some thinking.... two 3 year old cars with low mileage, and similar spec, worth the same as a 5 year old car with a lot more mileage on it..... Got to figuring, and voted for the Volvo. It's top quality. I certainly can't fault it on anything. Why have GM and Fiat got it so wrong? Surely I should have bought one of the vehicles I can get parts for at discount? (As a Dealer Group, we sell just about everything)  I just decided I wanted something a bit nicer. I almost even looked at a Skoda Superb..... anything but a Vauxhall. I rely on them to pay my wages, but don't trust them. Our works car park is about 15% GM. Some right stuff in there. Lancias, 1983 7 Series, my LR, Porsche Boxster..... etc...... nobody who works there particularly likes them.

[Junkman]

Opel's decline began quite some time ago.

It used to be Germany's No. 1 car maker for centuries. Then, after the war, it became No. 2 after VW, and held this position for another few centuries.

The recipe was simple, just build cars for some vast, but clearly defined client bases.

 

The Kadett for the masses. This always was the best selling German car behind the Beetle and later the Golf.

The Ascona for the better paid masses.

The Rekord for the well paid masses.

The Commodore for the managers who don't want a BMW.

The Kapitän/Admiral/Diplomat for the Directors/Bankers.

 

A winning formula.

 

However, they severely fucked it up for no reason whatsoever, starting by replacing the bossmans' cars with a warmed over Rekord, called Senator,

thus leaving this highly lucrative market segment to Mercedes and BMW without a fight.

 

Then they pulled out of their most profitable market segment by ditching the Rekord/Commodore. Ford and BMW are still laughing a hole in their arses.

 

Then they started to make the Corsa, which nobody expected them to do and which was the answer to a question nobody had asked.

It failed miserably because Polo, and Germany's second best selling import of all times, the Renault 5.

 

Then they did the right thing by making the Kadett and Ascona FWD. These were very successful, although not very profitable, since they were

in the highly competitive sub-middle class.

 

Then they came up with the stillborn child called Sintra, something nobody bought because size and OMGMPG.

 

Then they launched the Vectra, which bombed badly, because dull. At least in .de it never became the success Opel expected it to be.

 

By that time, they had completely alienated their established clients, who flocked to other makes and started mourning the demise of Opel as a

producer of good, useable cars.

 

In order to rectify* the situation, Opel then resorted to making the chaotic lineup we see today, with each and every offering somehow missing the mark.

At the same time, they started to sell off ever more company assets for short term survival. Despite a massive bailout courtesy of the German taxpayer,

entirely btw. part of which was the condition to save the Bochum facility, they are now dangerously asset stripped to the extent, that they probably couldn't

produce enough units even if they landed a hit. The latter is highly unlikely though, since about ten years ago, they drastically reduced their R&D

department, which might be the very reason for their current products being as half arsed as they are.

 

No further capital injections can be expected from the German government, because the Germans would probably indeed vote for the nazis in the upcoming

as a consequence, and Big Brother in Detroit is walking with a stick himself.

 

IMO there are only three possible solutions. Either Opel starts to build cars that sell (unlikely), or they go into a merger (with whom?), or they are taken over

by those there Chinese (most unlikely). I guess them iz d00mt.

[brickwall]

Good post JM. I remember that GM boasted that the Vectra cost a billion to develop - nobody could understand why. As for the Omega....

 

I just never understood who'd buy a Vauxhall.

[HH-R]

In the north east, V*uxhalls are pretty popular and people seem to think of them as nice cars. There are loads of new Corsas on the roads, I know a few people who keep buying a Corsa every three years (must have money to burn). The mk4 and 5 Ashtray were very popular, as was the Vectra B/C, all of them nearly always driven in a terrifying/irritating/selfish manner.

 

There are loads of Insignias and new shape Astras, but for some reason they don't seem to have sold nearly as many as the old Astra/Vectra. Nissan Jukes and Qashqais, are the new kids on the block, which are EVERYWHERE. I must see hundreds of the damn things a day. The sales figures might not back that up, but that's what it seems like. Can't really use a Vauxhall of indication that something stupid is about to occur, it was a pretty safe bet previously, just look for the Nissan logo now.

 

Older Astras/Corsas/Vectras are a popular shite beater car still, usually looking/sounding pretty rough and downtrodden.

 

I can't get away with the interiors on Vauxhalls. They either look boring/odd (mk3 Astra, Corsa B, mk4 Astra, Vectra B ), or look and feel really crap (Vectra C, mk5 Astra, Corsa C and D ). My dad's Signum had the most horrible, scratchiest plastic ever in, hard sandpaper like seats, half "leather" interior. A total let down after his Rover 400 which was a far nicer place to be. I thought the handles were going to snap off the seats whenever they were folded down. That, and it broke down constantly.

[tooSavvy]

 had the most horrible, scratchiest plastic ever in, hard sandpaper like seats, half "leather" interior.

 

.... my Savv has interior plastics like the sides of a photocopier, but comfy full leather seats 

 

TS

[warren t claim]

It doesn't matter if they made the most wonderful cars in the world because we live in a shallow society where BMW and Audi are seen as a class above.

[Bren]

A measure of how far GM have fallen is when they are reduced to using fiat engines.

[warren t claim]

People don't buy a car they buy the image that goes with it. Opel and Vauxhall have a dull image.

[Stroller133]

The prices of nearly new Vauxhalls is shocking! It's no longer up for debate Kia and Hyundia are now a more respectable brand than Vauxhall.

Brand new old shape Zafiras 10.5k (dull interior and low spec, but try finding another brand new 7 seater at that price. Astra's with a list price of 20+k are a year old under 10k.

[Rusty_Rocket]

This is all true.  In the past, people bought VX/ Opel because they were reliable, simple and cheap.  I don't think they have ever been particularly desirable or something to impress the Joneses with.

 

However, they are now unreliable, over complicated and the image problem has become worse (with a little help from Clarkson and his sheep), hence- the slow, steady decline into eventual bankruptcy.  I remember the first time I sat in a Vectra-C, and couldn't believe how cramped it was inside for a big, lardy car.

 

I would also say, many 'big names' are going the same way.. but Vauxhall are the biggest culprits. 

[Junkman]

I think there was a difference in how Vauxhalls were preceived in Britain, and Opels in Germany.

 

At least until the late 80s, Opels weren't seen as cheap and dull in Germany. They were seen as a quality product a notch above Ford, right behind BMW.

They were never cheap.

Their flagship models were seen as the thinking man's Mercedes S-Class. The latter was also seen as an old man's car, the big Opels weren't.

If you parked a new Rekord Berlina in front of your terraced, your neighbors were well impressed. Even more so, if you had a Kadett as a second car for the wifey.

 

This is the image they ruined by pure, unadulterated mis-management.

[MarvinsMom]

the fall of GM is such a shame, the last car they made which i thought was any good was the Omega, and it is a few years since that finished>

 

i mean, who thought that replacing that model with some stupid long wheelbase/same size Vectra thing that is also crushingly dull and as ugly as sin? i cannot even remember what it was called, even though there was one parked down our road this afternoon!! 

[Junkman]

I just never understood who'd buy a Vauxhall.

 

Me, for one.

I had two Vauxhalls, although from after the Gleichschaltung.

A 2.6 litre Omega estate and a 3.0 24v Senator. Sounds truly ace on paper, but both were such miserable pieces of shit, that I will never ever buy a newish Opel/Vauxhall again.

And this is the entire problem. I had several Opels way way back, and they all were fantastic.

 

My first one was a B-Commodore 2.8 GS/E, which probably was the best of the bunch. I used it for rallying. You know, where you sink thousands into a car, then smash it into a tree.

I had the usual array of B and C Kadetts as WBoDs and cheap runarounds. I wouldn't be me, if I didn't have a few Admirals and Diplomats and I had a rare B-Kapitän,

of which only 1500 or so were made. Interestingly it had the 2.8 H engine though, and was allegedly used as a smuggler car between Germany and Belgium when new.

I even had a V8 Diplomat.

I once had a C-Rekord Caravan 1.9S as a WBoD and miss it to this day. It had quite interesting handling what with radials up front and nobbly crossply winters out back. Fantastic.

[chaseracer]

...Gleichschaltung...

 

1990, and all that...?

 

[Grundig]

 

 

At least until the late 80s, Opels weren't seen as cheap and dull in Germany. They were seen as a quality product a notch above Ford, right behind BMW.

 

They were never cheap.

 

Wasn't the Opel Manta known as "the bricklayers Porsche" in Germany ?

[Hendry]

I'll be honest, I LOVED my Astra H Design spec, I thought it was stylish, quality well made feeling interior, it went fairly well, was well equipped and mostly reliable, and my dad and cousin both ran 2005 Vectras from 6 months old and new respectively as private hire taxis and they again did a great job, relatively reliable, cheap to run, OK inside, the problem was that Vauxhall consistently cost cut the life out of the cars, my Astra Design model being an early one was least affected but even so it was missing the rear seat armrest and centre rear head rest my previous Astra G had, then they later removed the trip computer, check control and adaptive brake lights, then for the 2007 facelift they changed the fleece carpeted inner tailgate trim to a plastic one and used cheaper carpets ala base model early noughties Kias.

 

My cousins Vectra was the Life spec, it was missing the rain sensor wipers, auto dim interior mirror, 3rd rear head rest amongst other things that the same trim on 2003/4 model years had, my dads Vectra was the Energy special edition spec, meant to be based on there base Life spec but with some extras, well it did, 16" alloys, SRi smoked head and tail lights, colour coded door handles, leather steering wheel and trip computer, but they removed the steering wheel audio controls, 12v socket, rear heating ducts and front centre armrest you got as standard on Life models. My uncle also had a 55 plate facelift SRi which had already been cost cut before facelift but they then also deleted things like the rear heating ducts and rear cupholders found on even the cost cut facelifts, my father in law also had an 11 plate Meriva Excite, based on the base S model but with Bluetooth, USB/iPod control and alloys and front fogs, but they removed the front centre armrest and front storage space flexspace thing and sliding cubby hole between the front seats. Add that to their current range being a fat ugly bloated mess it's easy to see why their fucked, yet despite this Vauxhall showrooms are everywhere, I presume they must survive on warranty work, recalls, repairs and are reg cars.

 

Its like Warren T Claim says, BMWs and Audis used to be for people who really were wealthy, now people particularly young people who have fallen into the image conscious society bullshit and have iphone 6s rather than Samsung/Nokia even though its shit just to impress similar people and stoat around in G star raw and Hollister clothes so people think they are wealthy would now ratherr drive older BMs and Mercs with private plates even if Vauxhalls were still good cars, as a result of BM and Audi now making cars that are affordable for people who would usually drive Fords/Vauxhalls people who would previously have driven nearly new or new Corsa SRis or Fiesta Zetec S are now driving Audi A1s, folk who would usually drive Astra SRis are now driving S Lines A3s and 1 series Beemers, and Cavalier CDX/Vectra Elite folk are now avoiding Insignias and going for 5 series, these days people are more concerned with image and driving more "prestige" cars, its actually cheapening BMWs image as I now see them not as prestige but volume cars now, and tbh BMWs, Audis and VWs aren't great either, theyve just nailed aspirational marketing.

[warren t claim]

I had the Insignia on my list and it's not a bad car. It lost out to the Mondeo due to it having awkward access to the rear because if it's sloping roof and the fact that the interiors start to look tatty at a young age. Not being a Luddite I have no problem with electric parking brakes and I didn't find the ride harsh at all. A big question mark hangs over the 6 speed box and it's ability to last the distance.

[John F]

MASSIVE LOLZ.

 

I never thought I'd see the day when a manufacturer was being slammed for its *image* on this site.

 

Opel / Vauxhall have made a few ace cars (C-Kadett, Opel Coupe, Manta, Monza, Firenza, Chevette HS, Mk 1 Astra GT/E, Cavalier Mk 2/3, Calibra) and a whole load of stuff that was no worse than the opposition up until the late 1990s. Some of their engines from this era are now almost legendary, e.g. 20 SEH, C20XE.

 

Nowadays their products are bloated and ugly, but so are everyone else's. Besides, someone had to replace the defunct Rover as the bottom of the image pile... it could easily have been Ford 'cos many their offerings from the late 1980s onwards have been gopping (bog-eyed Granada, early Focus) or ultra-dull (Mundano), but the blue oval fanbois wouldn't let that happen... 

[warren t claim]

Here's my GM Europe survival plan.

 

Poach the most talented designers and production engineers so you can make attractive and derivable cars that have showroom appeal.

 

When shopping for component suppliers give Delphi a swerve.

 

Badge the Insignificant as an Opel, we have fond memories of Mantas, Asconas and Commodores in the UK.

[Junkman]

The whole affair evidently just got a new twist.

 

Maybe I should have mentioned initially that this is the first car factory closure in postwar German history.

Just to give you a better idea of the impact this has within Germany in general.

Also, the industrial relations in Germany are completely different, than they are in the UK, thus the shutdown was only made possible, because the IG Metall (IGM) engineering trade union

and the plant’s works council agreed to it.

 

=============

From the press:

 

The 52-year history of the Opel plant in Bochum is representative of an era, an era in which the working class was thwarted from advancing its interests by the bureaucracies of the industrial unions and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). The persistent decline of the Bochum Opel works is symbolic of the degeneracy of trade union policy and the plant’s demise underscores the bankruptcy of the trade unions and their defenders.

 

For decades, the Ruhr was the largest industrial region in Germany. After the Second World War, the coal and steel industries formed the basis for the German economic miracle.

Hundreds of mines and steel mills filled the national purse.

In the 1950s, the Ruhr city of Duisburg recorded the highest per capita income in the young Federal Republic.

A self-confident working class gained important social concessions. The unions used these achievements to promote their corporatist concepts of participation in management and stakeholder partnership. Their goal was to integrate workers as much as possible into the company structures and interests, company management and the capitalist profit system.

 

When pits began to close in the wake of the coal crisis in the late 1950s, new jobs were created. The Opel factory was built on the former site of the Dannebaum colliery in 1962.

Motors were assembled in Plant II from 1962, and production of the A Kadett started in Plant I in July 1963.

The third division, the Plant III warehouse, was added in 1965.

 

About one in four of the approximately 11,000 workers at that time were former miners, and most Opel employees came from miner families. At this time, there were still 19 mines in Bochum alone, with the last mine closing in 1972. The Prosper Haniel colliery in Bottrop, the last of several hundred mines formerly operating in the Ruhr region, closed in 2012.

 

In the 1980s, the Opel workforce in Bochum grew to more than 20,000, but the site’s decline also began in this decade (what did I write earlier? (JM)).

Above all, the development of computer technology enabled companies to internationalise their production. Workers were placed under increasing pressure by corporations, which were now able to shift production to low-wage countries. About half-a-million manufacturing jobs were dismantled in the Ruhr region between 1980 and 2002.

 

The workers at Opel, a subsidiary of the globally operating General Motors Corporation, were confronted with this problem at a very early stage. While the management extorted the workforce by threatening to move production to other cheaper countries, IG Metall persisted with its nationalist perspective of industrial partnership.

Concessions made by the works councils and trade unions failed to solve this problem. Again and again, IGM and the works council functionaries proclaimed: “These concessions strengthen our competitiveness and therefore secure our jobs.â€Â

 

As early as 1989, works council boss Rolf Breuer declared that works councils were basically prepared to tolerate “blackmail to the point of accepting child labour†(The Trade Unionist, May 1989).

The Bochum workers repeatedly rebelled against this policy of so-called concessions. But each time, IG Metall and its SPD-dominated works councils came to the aid of those in the company, who opposed industrial action.

In the 1980s, Peter Jaszczyk, a works councillor since 1970, led a Bochum plant opposition group, calling itself “Opel Forum†and later “Engineering Workers at Opelâ€Â. Jaszczyk was a member of the Stalinist Communist Party of Germany (DKP), which worked closely with the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) Stalinist regime. He later joined the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor to the SED, and finally the SPD.

 

The DKP had tactical differences with the SPD and the Social Democratic works council chairmen, Günter Perschke and Rolf Breuer. But like the SPD, it defended the principle of industrial partnership in the context of worker participation and refused to take issue with the capitalist system.

In a detailed article about militant disputes in the engineering industry, Der Spiegel news magazine, which certainly had no sympathy with the DKP, wrote as early as 1973 that the DKP operated “in line with strict observance of union loyalty within the framework of the code of industrial relations. In practice, most DKP works council officials differ from their SPD colleagues only in being more robustly engaged.â€Â

 

After the collapse of the Stalinist German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), the former DKP officials moved further to the right. Nevertheless, IG Metall intensified exclusion proceedings against Jaszczyk and 80 other union members, when his opposition list gained the support of a majority of employees at the works council election in 1990. Jaszczyk and his colleagues consequently renounced all criticism of the IG Metall and its works council representatives, and returned to the bosom of the IGM bureaucracy.

 

In 1996, Jaszczyk was then elected works council chairman and continued from where his predecessors had left off: blackmailing the workforce and brokering more and more concessions “to secure the (competitiveness of the) Bochum industrial siteâ€Â. But the Bochum workers rebelled again, storming the works council office and demanding that Jaszczyk stop colluding with the management.

This was in vain. Five years later, in 2001, the balance of Jaszczyk’s term as works council chairman amounted to the loss of almost 3,000 jobs at the Bochum plant.

 

Another movement, the “Opposition Trade Unionist Group at IGMâ€Â, formed to oppose Jaszczyk. In 1996, works council member Wolfgang Schaumberg collected about 4,000 signatures (one third of the workforce at the time), demanding the council’s dismissal from office. However, this group also promoted a purely trade union perspective. It functioned along the established lines of staff participation in management and refused to mobilise the workers against IG Metall and the works council bureaucracy.

 

When the group, under its new name of “Opposition without Bordersâ€Â, for the first time failed to win a single seat on the works council in 2010, Schaumberg admitted to the New Germany newspaper (August 4, 2010): “We have placed too much emphasis on talking to union officials and works councils, and neglected cooperation with colleagues in other plants.â€Â

 

In 2002, Jaszczyk resigned from his post in the wake of a corruption scandal within the works council, and the SPD functionary Dietmar Hahn took over the chairmanship. Two years later, the General Motors management announced the elimination of 12,000 of the company’s 63,000 jobs in Europe, including 10,000 in Germany.

 

The Bochum workers responded with a spontaneous walkoutâ€â€against the will of IG Metall and their works councils. The strike was sold out and Rainer Einenkel took over as works council chairman shortly before Christmas. At the time, more than 10,000 men and women were still employed at the Bochum Opel plant.

Like Jaszczyk, Einenkel was a former member of the DKP. He continued the policy of job and wage cuts and, like his predecessors, defended all concessions made by the works council by arguing that this was the only way jobs at the site could be protected.

 

When General Motors went bankrupt in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis in 2008, it appeared Opel was going to be put up for sale. When GM suddenly distanced itself from the sales plans, IG Metall and their works councils again offered the corporation their services. In 2010, wage cuts of an annual €265 million were conceded in the “Master Agreementâ€Â.

 

In mid-2012, current IG Metall boss Berthold Huber joined with Opel general works council chairman Dr. Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug to present the so-called “Germany Planâ€Â, the union’s own reorganisation programme, allegedly designed to “strengthen the Opel brand†through job dismantling, reduced wages and cuts in employer contributions to workers’ social benefits.

Company executives welcomed this initiative but demanded further cuts and the closure of one of the production sites. The IGM leadership recommended Bochum for the closure.

The workforce there had long been a thorn in the side of the union. Following the shutdown decision, IG Metall systematically organised the isolation of the Bochum Opel workers.

 

The so-called “Master Collective Agreement†proved useful in this respect. Vague promises about possible future investment in the company were made to employees at the other Opel plants in order to win their acceptance of a collective agreement, focusing on the closure of the Bochum plant in 2016.

When the Bochum workers refused to consent to this, they were fiercely abused and attacked by IG Metall functionaries and works council hacks from other sites. As punishment, the shutdown was brought forward to 2014.

 

Einenkel put on a show of being ready to fight for jobs, but suppressed any serious opposition to the Opel management. He tried to console the workers and attacked those who really wanted to fight, labelling them hotheads who threatened to undermine the union’s negotiations over the reorganisation plan. Einenkel was supported by the Left Party, of which he was a member.

A role similar to those of all the previous trade union opposition groups was played by the Stalinist supporters of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), whose factory-floor group “Offensive†operated three of the Opel works councils at the time. Their sham appeals for “International Solidarity†were primarily designed to distract workers’ attention from the role actually being played by IG Metall, which the group slavishly defended.

 

Now the last 3,300 Opel workers are to be made redundant. Thousands of jobs will be lost in Opel’s components division in Bochum. Unemployment and poverty will increase even further in this already troubled region.

 

In the next six months, a residual staff will take care of the work site dismantling, and ownership of Plants I and IIâ€â€the latter ceased production last yearâ€â€will be transferred to the city of Bochum.

 

Plant III, which had already been outsourced in 2006, currently employs 420 workers. These will be supplemented by another 265 from the now redundant Opel workforce. This means that Opel will retain control over its distribution centre at least until 2016.

 

Einenkel, now 60 years old, will move to a position in the transfer company for a year, after which he is expected to retire.

 

In March 2014, the Bochum Opel plant was added to the list of sites commemorated in the Ruhr region’s “Industrial Heritage Trailâ€Â. Like many disused mines and steel mills, it is now a mere relic of the past. The same holds for IG Metall and the other trade unions. The times when they were able to promote themselves as organisations representing the interests of workers are long gone.

They have become corporate co-managers, which organise job destruction and wage cuts and ensure that all opposition to these processes is suppressed in the factories.

=============

 

However, what the article doesn't take into consideration, is the steady watering down of the Opel product portfolio I tried to describe earlier, which went on over the exact same period as the above.