CAR workers accused General Motors of betrayal last night after a mass walk-out brought production at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant to a standstill.
The wildcat strike action began after a senior GM official admitted the company has plans to axe up to 1,000 jobs at the site by bringing an end to one its three daily shifts.
Ellesmere Port union convenor John Featherstone said: "We have been betrayed."
The Daily Post has learned that the job cuts plan is just one of a number of drastic measures designed to slash millions of pounds from the production bill at Ellesmere Port. The company has presented the union leadership with a 90-point plan to cut costs and improve efficiency.
Items on the leaked GM wish-list range from a pay freeze for five years, to the introduction of mandatory overtime, with all extra hours worked paid at the standard rate, not the traditional enhanced overtime rate. The package of reforms has outraged workers at the factory.
One said: "The 90-item wish-list from Vauxhall originally contained 180 items. Europe removed 90 of them, so I dread to think of what else they could have been asking for." Another added: "We've bent over backwards for this company over the last five years and now they're trying to introduce this."
The Ellesmere Port site currently makes the Astra model and is vying with four other plants in Europe to make the new version of the car, which is going to be launched in 2010.
It is rumoured that only four out of the five European plants in England, Germany, Belgium, Poland and Sweden will be awarded the contract and the decision about where to cut production is due next year.
Last Tuesday, union leaders flew to Germany to discuss the future of Ellesmere Port. The mission to Frankfurt followed an urgent meeting in London between GM Europe chiefs and Amicus union general secretary Derek Simpson, national officers and Ellesmere Port convenors.
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