Opel workers strike against GM

BERLIN, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of workers at Opel plants in Germany went on street in Ruesselsheim near Frankfurt on Thursday to protest against GM's decision to keep Opel.

An employee of German car manufacturer Opel  holds up a t-shirt reading 'We are Opel'  punctured with a cardboard knife symbolizing  GM, during a warning strike at the Opel plant  in Kaiserslautern November 5, 2009. The board  of General Motors Co has opted to keep Opel,  undoing months of painstaking negotiations to  sell the European unit to a Russian-backed  group led by Canada's Magna. GM confirmed the  decision made by its 13-member board after a  meeting of directors on Tuesday in Detroit.  (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

Around 10,000 Opel employees gathered in Rsselsheim near Frankfurt with banners and a fake coffin to express their rage at General Motors, which canceled the planned sale of its European operations to Canadian auto parts manufacturer Magna on Tuesday, according to the local media reports.

"We want to show that we workers won't simply take this and accept it," said Alfred Klingel, the head of the workers' council at the Ruesselsheim plant.

Other protests took place at Opel plants in Bochum, Eisenach and Kaiserslautern. GM's decision also angered German media and governments, thinking it's a kind of humiliation. "Opel -- the bigpiss-take," screamed the front-page headline of the best-selling Bild newspaper on Thursday. "The Americans duped everyone."

On Thursday German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged U.S. President Barack Obama to take action on the issue of Opel, according to the report of DPA.