The Autoeuropa plant in Palmela will suspend production from the first half of September due to a lack of parts from a supplier badly affected by the August floods in Slovenia, the company announced on Monday.
“At the root of the problem is the lack of parts produced by a supplier in Slovenia that are essential for building engines,” the Volkswagen group company justifies in a statement to employees, adding that the Slovenian supplier was “severely affected by the floods that occurred at the beginning of August”.
In the statement sent to workers on Monday, to which Lusa had access, the Palmela car factory, in the Setúbal district, does not mention any predictable date for the resumption of production.
However, Autoeuropa’s management clarifies that the production stop should take place from the first half of September and should last several weeks.
The company also mentions that the Volkswagen Group is not only providing technical support to the Slovenian supplier to restart production, but is also working to find #alternatives with other suppliers to return to normal production as soon as possible in affected factories.
Autoeuropa also points out that the plant’s management is “monitoring the situation together with the Volkswagen Group” and admits that “the scenario could change depending on the flow of the supply chain”.
Faced with the stoppage of production announced today by the Palmela factory, the coordinator of the Workers Commission, Rogério Nogueira, said that “a production stoppage is always a cause of great concern for the workers”.
Employees expect there will be “minimal impact on employee income”
“But for our part, we will do everything we can to make it possible to find solutions that do not have a negative impact on workers’ lives,” concluded the coordinator of the Autoeuropa workers’ committee.
Speaking to TSF, Rogério Nogueira said he still needs to “objectively” understand the “exact dimension of the stop that will happen”.
“Until then, it’s not worth suffering beforehand,” he said.
He explained that the first tool to be used now is the downdays (days of non-production, during which workers stay at home without any drop in income) and repeated: “for our part, we will do everything, we will certainly come to an agreement so that there is minimal impact on workers’ lives and incomes”.
Source: DN
