Spain's Opel workers threaten strikes

MADRID (AP) — Workers' leaders have threatened strikes if large-scale job cuts hit a car plant in central Spain after thousands protested General Motors' sale of its European brand Opel to Canadian company Magna International.

Several thousand protesters filled Zaragoza's central Paseo de la Independencia boulevard on Saturday calling on the U.S. car manufacturing giant, its German subsidiary company and Magna to save its Spanish factory from massive job losses.

As many as 10,500 Opel jobs in Europe could be cut and some production at Zaragoza moved to Eisenach, in Germany, Magna has said.

Zaragoza is the group's most efficient European plant with 7,500 workers producing 500,000 vehicles annually, union officials said.

"This plan could signal the beginning of the end of the auto industry in the province of Aragon," trade union Comisiones Obreras de Aragon said in a statement sent to The Associated Press Sunday.

The trade union said that if Magna went ahead with the plan to shift production from an efficient plant to a less effective production site it would soon begin to lose money and have to turn to government loans.