For a second consecutive day, workers at a SEAT plant in Barcelona were on strike on over plans by the subsidiary of German auto giant Volkswagen to slash 330 jobs in Spain due to the recession.
If the strike continues, work at another SEAT plant at Martorell near Barcelona will likely have to stop due to a lack of parts, a spokesman for the company said.
Last week SEAT announced that it plans to cut 330 non-production jobs at its three plants in Spain due to a downturn in demand.
The job cuts represent about 6% of the 5,750 jobs at the company which are not directly involved in the production of vehicles.
In total SEAT employs around 13,000 people in Spain. Aside from the plant at the free zone of the port of Barcelona and at Martorell, the company also has a plant at El Prat, also in the northeastern zone of Catalonia.
SEAT sold 336,600 vehicles in 2009, an 8.6% drop over the previous year, mostly due to weakness in its domestic market Spain.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2010
