US' GM to lay off St Petersburg workers Mar 30, pay 7 wages

MOSCOW, Mar 20 (PRIME) -- U.S. General Motors’ (GM) will start laying off the bulk of its employees at the car plant in the Russian city of St. Petersburg from March 30 with an offer of negotiated resignation and compensation totaling several salaries, a representative for the company told PRIME Friday.

“We are doing everything we can on our side, help in many ways. We are not launching the staff reduction procedure so far, as we want to take the way that will be more convenient for our employees. We pay seven official salaries at once,” the representative said but refused to mention an average salary at the plant.

According to a source in the administration of St. Petersburg, 919 people work at the plant now. The representative for GM said that after the plant is suspended, a small number of staff will be left to support the plant’s preservation.

GM said it will cease operations in the country on Wednesday. It has halted industrial assembly at its car plant in St. Petersburg, will suspend contract car assembly at a plant of Russian carmaker GAZ Group in Nizhny Novgorod and withdraw Opel models and Chevrolet mass models from the market.

End