Three hundred workers at General Motors South Africa (GMSA) stand to lose their jobs following the sale of the group’s Hummer H3 brand to a Chinese company.
The workers are based at GMSA’s Port Elizabeth plant.
About 1 000 workers have already been laid off since last year.
On Tuesday GMSA announced an end to the production of its sports utility vehicle, a move which followed US-based parent company GM Corporation filing for bankruptcy earlier this week.
But, in a press release, GMSA denied that the bankruptcy would significantly affect GM’s South African operation, saying the local company was ‘responsible for our own viability”.
According to GMSA, US-based creditors have no claims on the local operation.
GMSA also denied rumours that the plant itself would be closing, saying that only the Hummer production line would cease.
GMSA’s spokesperson Des Fenner told the Mail & Guardian Online that the company began a ‘restructuring and remodelling programme” last year.
He added that laid-off workers have been ‘repositioned and absorbed” into other GMSA plants such as Opel, Isuzu and Chevrolet.
The company is now focusing on these ‘high-volume platforms” to improve its business standing in the market.
But the National Union of Metal Workers of South Africa (Numsa) spokesperson, Alex Mashilo, described the GMSA announcement as ‘unclear and confusing”. He questioned the company’s assertion that it could remain unaffected by the US bankruptcy.
Mashilo, however, told M&G Online that Numsa will continue to discuss with GMSA a proposal to ‘re-skill” laid-off workers, so that they can more easily access other job opportunities in the motor industry.