Opel workers rally against GM cuts in Europe

RUESSELSHEIM, Germany (Reuters) - Some 15,000 Opel workers rallied on Thursday at the German headquarters of their struggling company, demanding that parent General Motors scrap plans for plant closures in Europe.

Carrying banners reading "Free Opel" and "Yes we can, even without GM," they called for Opel's independence from the floundering Detroit parent, at company headquarters west of Germany's financial capital Frankfurt.

In Sweden, police said 2,500 to 3,000 people marched through Trollhattan, the southwestern town where GM unit Saab has its headquarters. Saab filed for protection from creditors last week.

GM's European brands are near collapse in the wake of the global crisis. Opel, 152 years old, with 25,000 workers and once briefly Germany's biggest carmaker, has been hit by weak demand and by troubles at GM.

The Detroit carmaker said on Thursday its European division had pretax losses of $2.8 billion in 2008. It has said $1.2 billion of costs need to be cut in Europe, where it operates Opel, Saab and Vauxhall in Britain.

GM Europe's top labor leader Klaus Franz attacked management for booking profits in the United States stemming from Chevrolet sales in Europe. "Opel is not the disaster, GM is the disaster," he said.

Opel, the first European carmaker to seek a government bailout after the crisis began, needs 3.3 billion euros to keep afloat to the end of 2011, a source told Reuters last week.

The carmaker's management will present to the supervisory board on Friday a new business plan. Unions have been pushing for an independent European Opel/Vauxhall group that would include outside investors such as the brand's dealers.

"SWEET POISON" OF PROTECTIONISM

German Vice Chancellor Frank-Walter Steinmeier pledged his support at the rally but stopped short of making any guarantees. The Social Democrat is campaigning against cabinet boss Angela Merkel to become chancellor in September federal elections amid record low approval ratings for his party.

"This is about more than just Opel. It's about the future of the car industry in Germany. The car sector isn't just any ordinary industry here. It's the backbone of our economy," he said.

But he added: "I am against every form of protectionism. Do not listen to the sweet poison of the separatists, they are the gravediggers of employment -- Opel needs open markets, too."

So far, Germany has been spared the political protests that have hit other countries. Germans have learned to live with stagnation, trust their government and have little post-war tradition of industrial strife.

German leaders have nevertheless wrangled about how far the government should go to rescue Opel, with some politicians arguing the carmaker should be left to fend for itself.

Merkel told a news conference in Berlin she had not yet seen the required restructuring plan to decide on any state help for Opel but that if it needed it, the priority would be financing guarantees rather than more direct state aid.

Opel workers said they were unsure the protest would help.

"I think in the end it won't achieve very much because if they borrow money now to stick it into the company they'll have to repay it later," said Hans-Joachim Krause.

"I hope that Opel survives, that our jobs survive," said Claudia Leisler, another Opel worker. "It's all so depressing, to be honest. I've worked here for 17 years. I never thought it would come to this."

Similarly, thousands of Swedes are worried about their future as Saab teeters.

(Reporting by Christiaan Hetzner; writing by Erik Kirschbaum; editing by Andrew Roche)