General Motors Corp.'s European division said Monday that its plans to outsource some jobs at its Opel unit were in line with a labor agreement it reached in March, AP reported. The company defended its plans after Klaus Franz, a labor representative for workers at GM's Opel brand, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper this weekend that the company was looking to transfer 350 Opel workers from their jobs at plants in the cities of Bochum, Kaiserslautern and Ruesselsheim to an external company. Doing so, he said, would violate GM Europe's agreement to guarantee the jobs would remain unmoved and unchanged through 2010. Ruediger Assion, a spokesman for GM Europe, said the outsourcing plans had been discussed before and were already part of the March agreement. «GM Europe doesn't plan anything in secret, but follows plans in close cooperation with Opel's management board,» he said Monday. --mor 1431 Local Time 1131 GMT
