COMPANIES Unite, the UK union, on Tuesday said it had secured agreement from Magna to maintain production at General Motors’ two UK plants beyond 2013, removing a key obstacle to the Canadian company’s takeover of Opel and Vauxhall with Russia’s Sberbank.
The union, which had opposed Magna’s Germany-backed restructuring plan for GM Europe because of worries about job and production cuts in Britain, described the agreement as “a fairer deal for the UK”. Unite said it would save about 600 jobs out of the nearly 1,400 Magna was proposing to cut at GM’s UK operations.
