Autoeuropa workers source fears production stoppage may jeopardise jobs in other companies
The coordinator of the Autoeuropa Industrial Park Workers’ Committees fears that the production stoppage announced for next month by the Volkswagen plant in Palmela could jeopardise jobs in other companies.
“The impact will be quite significant on many of the suppliers,” Daniel Bernardino told Lusa today, convinced that “temporary and contract workers, who are the most vulnerable, could be the most affected”.
“We need to find solutions for these temporary and contract workers because they all represent families, and for the permanent workers of the companies on the Autoeuropa industrial estate because we are all in a complicated situation,” he went on.
“Companies that don’t have flexibility, such as ‘down-days’ (days of non-production), are going to face a more complicated situation”.
Companies that have non-production days “will also be in a complicated situation” because there aren’t enough down-days to cope with so many days of non-production, he added.
According to Daniel Bernardino, unofficial information passed on to his committee suggests Autoeuropa’s stoppage will begin on September 11 – and could last between two and six weeks.
The company announced the looming stoppage in a note to workers yesterday – guaranteeing that the Volkwagen Group is not only providing technical support to its Slovenian supplier (hampered by flood damage) so that it can restart production as soon as possible, but is also working to find alternatives with other suppliers.
The plant, with around 5,000 workers, produced a total of 231,100 cars last year, which was around 71% of the total number of vehicles produced in Portugal the year before.
Source: LUSA
