Rainer Einenkel earns a tough living trying to protect the jobs of 7,600 workers in the German city of Bochum who still build Opel Astra compacts and Zafira minivans at the local General Motors plant.
The elected leader of the factory's works council is already a veteran of challenging decisions by GM's Detroit headquarters. And now that billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is prodding GM to explore joining the alliance between Renault and Nissan, Einenkel's job could be about to get harder.
A deal bringing GM into the Renault-Nissan alliance, being discussed by GM's board on Friday, could lead to thousands more job cuts across GM Europe.
"We have to expect the worst," he said via telephone from holiday in northeastern Germany, like the former coal mining heartland around Bochum an economically depressed region burdened by near 20 percent unemployment.
"I would break off my vacation at any time if there was a signal from the union that we need to meet to come up with a counter-strategy."
In October 2004, Einenkel directed the only wildcat strike at GM Europe after its newly appointed American chairman announced plans to slash the mainly German workforce by nearly a fifth to a current level of around 52,000.
Less than two years later, the company is back for more. GM Europe will soon scale back production at its UK plant in Ellesmere Port, northwest England, at the cost of 900 jobs and plans to close a plant in Portugal, eliminating another 1,100.
Were GM Europe to forge an alliance with Renault/Nissan, the deal would represent an "existential" threat to jobs in Germany, a source at Germany's IG Metall trade union said.
"You don't have to be a prophet to know that jobs are at risk," the union official said.
When talks to save the Portugal plant broke down, workers organized a wave of strikes across GM Europe's 18 plants that only ended after management agreed to negotiate to try and find a more socially acceptable solution.
CAPACITY REDUCTION
Analysts say that unlike Renault and Nissan, which scarcely compete directly in the same markets, Kerkorian's proposal would dramatically change the landscape of the alliance by creating considerable regional and product overlaps.
Opel and Renault are respectively the second and third largest brands in Europe, according to European automotive industry association ACEA. Combined, the two would control a market share almost equal to that of the Volkswagen group , the continent's largest carmaker.
"A Renault/Opel alliance runs into the same problem as any other two volume players getting together. The only rationale is massive capacity reduction," Morgan Stanley wrote in a report.
Christoph Stuermer from market researcher Global Insight said Opel could be in for rough times ahead, should Renault and Nissan bolster any cooperation by acquiring stakes in GM.
While GM does not publish detailed results for Opel, the German brand is thought by industry analysts to be barely profitable. In contrast, Renault expects to boost its operating margin to 6 from 2.5 percent by 2009.
Even less appealing for the unions is the thought that the alliance may end up being run by Renault and Nissan CEO Ghosn, a restructuring expert whose reputation for closing plants and cutting jobs earned him the nickname "le cost killer".
"If the three just cooperate on a project-by-project basis then GM Europe could pick and choose which one they want to cooperate on, but if Ghosn were to become a joint CEO of GM and Renault/Nissan, then things are going to become very hard for GM Europe," Stuermer said.
But some skeptics view such an expanded alliance as unlikely, believing Kerkorian is just pouring pressure on GM after the casino mogul lost a bundle on his investment.
"The alliance is light years away from being realized," said Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg's Stephan Droxner.
Automotive Industry Data analyst Peter Schmidt agreed. "Nothing can be ruled out, but I see the chances at being no higher than 10 percent. If I were a Renault or Nissan shareholder, I'd put a gun to Ghosn's head and say don't you dare."
