The company announced, on April 26, 2024, the closure of its vehicle assembly plants in both Colombia and Ecuador. In this way, they requested authorization from the Ministry of Labor for the collective dismissal of workers, 600 from General Motors and 128 from Zoficol SAS.
Consequently, the Ministry of Labor stated that the dismissals in Colmotores cannot be effective due to a series of irregularities in the respective process for said purpose. In this way, General Motors expressed that it has a benefits package that each of the employees who will be laid off after the closure of the automotive company could have access to.
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“We are offering them a very generous retirement package, which is born from the love and gratitude we have for them. This includes a job transition service, either for those who decide to become entrepreneurs or for those looking for another job.”commented Santiago Chamorro, president of GM South America in an interview with Time.
The company spoke out against the Ministry of Labor’s refusal to approve the massive layoffs in the way the liquidation was structured. In this case, It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 workers were part of the company in Colombia and that, of these, about 600 will be fired in the first round of company liquidations.
Meanwhile, MinTrabajo has expressed its rejection of the mass layoffs through a letter. “They must maintain the employment relationship of all the workers who are the subject of the request for authorization for the total and definitive closure of work and consequently the collective dismissal of 600 workers from the General Motors company. – Colmotores SA, and 128 workers from the workplace of the Colmotores Industrial Free Trade Zone company,” the Ministry stated.
Taking the above into account, we can only wait for the Ministry of Labor to respond regarding the new conditions that Colmotores has or, simply, if this process drags out even more.
It is worth clarifying that there are three measures decreed by the Ministry of Labor, in order to protect the labor rights of General Motors employees:
The first orders the company General Motors (Colmotores SA) to “refrain from initiating and/or carrying out any administrative procedure before the Chamber of Commerce and its subsidiaries, the Superintendency of Companies, the Superintendency of Transportation and the National Tax and Customs Directorate. (Dian) related to their corporate purpose and the economic activities they carry out, tending to reorganize, redesign, dissolve, become insolvent and/or liquidate, until a substantive decision is adopted within the administrative file of the authorization for the total closure of work and definitively and consequently the collective dismissal of the workers.”
The second measure orders, in the same way, what was previously provided, but for the Colmotores SAS Zoficol SAS Industrial Free Zone
Finally, he ordered General Motors and the company Zona Franca Industrial Colmotores SAS Zoficol SAS “maintain the employment relationship of all the workers subject to the request for authorization for the total and definitive closure of work and consequently the collective dismissal of 600 workers at the General Motors company (…) regardless of whether they have signed voluntary retirement plans, until a substantive decision is adopted.”
