Nissan plan to shut factories will omit car parts warehouse in El Prat

Nissan has announced that a car parts warehouse in El Prat, in the surroundings of Barcelona, will not be included in its plan to shut its factories in Catalonia.

With 3,000 people working at the Japanese company’s various plants in the Barcelona area, unions have warned that the closing plan would have a grim impact for thousands of families, putting 20,000 indirect jobs at risk.

The car parts storehouse in El Prat currently employs around 100 people.

Nissan also announced that it will start negotiating with unions on June 30. "Our aim is to have an open dialogue with all parts, with the goal of setting a negotiation table to reach agreements that allow us to move forward," the company said in an official statement.

On May 28, Nissan’s CEO Makoto Uchida made the company’s intention to close all its plants in Catalonia after 40 years of activity official, citing the need to “rationalize" the business.

The head of Nissan in Europe, Gianluca de Ficchy, argued that competitiveness at the Catalonia plants is too low. According to him, the production in Barcelona is now at 20% of the total capacity, and it was expected to drop more in the near future. 

The decision to leave Catalonia has prompted the anger of employees who see their jobs at risk. In the past weeks, workers have gone on strike and staged a series of protests, such as a thousand-strong march in the center of Barcelona.