Berlin/London - Thousands of workers at Opel plants in Germany went on strike Thursday, as employees across Europe came to terms with parent company General Motors' announcement that it would not sell the firm. The decision has unleashed fury in Germany, where more than half of Opel's 50,000 European jobs are located, as workers feel both unease over how Detroit-based GM plans to restructure the ailing carmaker, and humiliation after a year-long attempt to agree a sale.
Opel has plants in Germany, Spain, Britain (under the Vauxhall brand), Poland, Belgium and Austria.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel called US President Barack Obama on Thursday to urge action on a new strategic plan for Opel.
"The Chancellor advised that her government would urge General Motors to present a new strategy for Opel as soon as possible, and to repay the bridging loan by the end of November," Merkel's spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said in Berlin.
The German government had made 1.5 billion euros (2.2 billion dollars) available to GM as a bridging loan ahead of the planned sale to Austrian-Canadian consortium Magna, Berlin's preference. The deal collapsed on Tuesday after GM announced it would not sell Opel.
At Opel's plant in Ruesselsheim, the largest single Opel factory in Europe, some 10,000 workers downed tools at 11:00 AM (1000 GMT) to "flex their muscles" against what unions fear could be deep job cuts at the plant, now that General Motors is back in charge.
GM said Wednesday that it would cut 10,000 jobs across Europe and may close factories, in an effort to reduce costs by 30 per cent to bring the carmaker back to profitability.
Opel suffers from overcapacity as well as a model line-up that has left consumers unimpressed in recent years.
Roland Koch, premier of the state of Hesse and a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats, addressed the crowd at the Ruesselsheim plant.
"We demand that Opel will have a future in Germany and in Europe," he said.
Koch also spoke of the anger of the German government at the treatment of Opel by General Motors, accusing the company of wasting Germany's time and not keeping their word.
Armin Schild, a spokesman for the IG Metall union, to which most Opel employees belong, urged General Motors to rapidly put into place a strategy for Opel.
"It is not to be expected of the employees and the unions, for whom this decision was also a slap in the face, to come up with new plans," he added.
Hours before GM's announcement, European workers' unions had negotiated a deal with Magna to cut workers' costs.
GM's decision has been received as a serious loss of face for Merkel, whose previous government had gone to great lengths to preserve jobs in the country ahead of national elections which took place in September.
Closure of the Opel plant at Bochum in the state of North Rhine- Westphalia could prove disastrous for the Christian Democrats ahead of regional elections there next May.
In other European states where Opel has plants, workers' reactions to the GM announcement was more muted, although employees at the Opel plant in Antwerp planned strikes for Friday, unions said.
There are growing concerns in Belgium that GM will target the Antwerp plant, which employs 2,584 people, for closure.
In Britain, the GM announcement had been received with cautious optimism, as the previous Magna deal was seen as privileging German interests to the detriment of the nearly 5,000 workers at the two Vauxhall plants in England.
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Thursday that "We would like to have early sight of the GM business plan, given that they have had a change of view."
Spanish officials were relaxed about the change of plan, as Madrid had seen its own Opel operations as among the best run in Europe.
"We only want the rules of the economy, of efficiency, to be applied and that the most efficient factories go ahead," Spanish Secretary of State for the European Union, Diego Lopez Garrido, said.
"The most efficient one is the Figueruelas plant," he said. Some 7,200 workers are employed there.
