General Motors fires 2,700 in Venezuela after plant closure: workers

Reuters ^ | April 24, 2017 | Corina Pons

[Ciaphas Cain]

General Motors' (GM.N) Venezuelan subsidiary has sent a message to almost 2,700 staff informing them that they are no longer employed by the company and had received severance pay in their bank accounts, according to two employees.

A Venezuelan court last week ordered the seizure of the company's Valencia plant, ruling in favor of two dealers that had filed a case in 2000 against the subsidiary on grounds they had not complied with an agreed sale of 10,000 vehicles.

Workers say that before the seizure was announced, GM had been dismantling the plant, which has not produced a car since the beginning of 2016 because of shortages of parts and strict currency controls in the OPEC nation.

The seizure, which GM called "illegal," comes amid a deepening economic and social crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.

[Robwin]

GM ought hire both Barack Obama and Sean Penn to negotiate with the Maduro government for them.

[monkeybrau]

” ... which has not produced a car since the beginning of 2016 “

So they got a year and a half of severance + severance. Unfortunate what has happened to the country, but generous treatment considering how much GM already lost in seized facilities and property.

[txhurl]

You have to wonder what Hillary’s plan was to deal with this. Again, where are we gonna put all these commies once they detach their fangs and try to slither off and blend into the landscape? There must be 5 million of them, world-wide.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I am very sure that the GM Venezuelan operation was set up to build cars for South America.

It was and Venezuela was one of the few countries in South America where you could buy a American brand car. IIRC we had a Chevy.

GM was there for over a half a century. They were betting on Chavez being the same sort that came before, full of grandiose speeches and crying about the poor while he funneled money into his own pocket. Very few of the "revolutionaries" in third world countries actually have any ideology aside from "getting me and mine money and power". They will take checks and assistance from anyone willing to give them a leg up.

While they certainly do not advance the country they usually do not want to wreck it. They are well aware of the story of the golden goose.

But every now and then you get a true believer. Usually they are taken out by their own people before they manage to take power. When they are not, that is when something terrible happens.

[lurk]

So the collective stole a building full of parts. All they need now is someone who knows what they are doing.

Another perfect picture of how collectivism works.

[catnipman]

“So the collective stole a building full of parts.”

I imagine the building was mostly empty. GM has’t been able to build more than a few cars for the last 2 years due the inability of the subsidiary to pay for imported parts, and the article says GM had been dismantling the plant, which means they had been removing the production machinery and shipping it out of the country, which is exactly what the big multinational oil companies did as soon as they started getting information that “nationalization” was on the horizon.

[Alberta's Child]

Did GM really own a plant in Venezuela if they hadn’t produced a car in more than a year? It sounds like they owned just a large, non-functioning building and a lot of machinery that was gathering dust.

[Deplorable American1776]

I just hope that the 2700 employees didn’t get paid by the money the US taxpayers paid GM.

[ltc8k6]

“GM hadn’t made a car at the plant in Valencia, Venezuela since 2015, and automakers only made 2,849 cars in the country in 2016 altogether, a drastic drop from the 172,218 made in 2007. “

“The company is confident that justice will eventually be served, and looks forward to continue leading the Venezuelan market,” GM said in the statement. “In the meantime, GMV, through its dealers, will continue to provide aftermarket service and parts for its customers.”

http://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/index.ssf/2017/04/gm_fires_2700_venezuela-based.html

[wardamneagle]

I found out from a friend who lives in Columbia GM was selling cars/parts to Central/South American countries.