AvtoVAZ will ask almost 15,000 workers to resign with no guarantee of a new job as it seeks to shift employees to nonautomotive subsidiaries, the company’s labor union said Tuesday.
The manufacturer returned its 90,000-person labor force to full pay as a necessary prelude to initiating job cuts under Russian law, said Andrei Lyapin, the union’s chairman.
“People are being asked to sign a resignation letter in order to be transferred, which means they’re giving up their legal right to complain if they don’t get employed,” he said.
AvtoVAZ plans to establish new units as part of a plan to restructure debt, defend a 25 percent share of the Russian car market and raise annual output to 900,000 autos.
Lyapin said employees are being asked to put their names forward for transfer without any knowledge of what the new units will do.
An AvtoVAZ spokesman, who declined to be identified, said workers would be moved on a voluntary basis.
The carmaker returned its work force to full pay two months earlier than initially planned following the restructuring agreement with the state and Renault, France’s second-biggest carmaker, which owns a 25 percent stake.
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