Holden defuses union claims

Holden has issued a statement today in response to a front-page article published by the Financial Review, reporting that the 2014 Commodore would be the last to be designed in Australia.

According to the article, the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA) has written to Holden MD Mike Devereux out of concern that work for its members will dry up after the next Commodore is launched.

Holden's statement, reproduced below, doesn't comment specifically on the long-term prognosis for its R&D in Australia, but motoring.com.au spoke this morning with the company's Senior Product Communications Manager, Kate Lonsdale, who provided some background to the issue. Apparently the union's concerns have been raised in the subtext of negotiations with the company. It seems the union harbours doubts that Holden will be in a position to retain its standing army of engineers, assuming design centres overseas take on responsibility for developing a future Commodore post 2014.

"Basically, we're in EBA [Enterprise Bargaining Agreement] negotiations at the moment and none of these decisions have been made on our long-term strategy," Lonsdale explained. "But Mike Devereux has been quite open and honest with employees and unions about the range of options we have. We've gotta make some tough decisions in the long term, but we're talking about the end of the decade before any of these decisions come into play."

On a scale of probability, losing broad-based responsibility for vehicle design and engineering to international GM divisions seems like one of the less likely scenarios. Indeed, Ford Australia is proving local engineering talent can thrive in the Australian market, even if the manufacturing facility for that company is under a cloud at the present time.

"Nothing's changed," Lonsdale continued, "we still plan to be a centre for engineering, designing and manufacturing vehicles. In the future, those products... may well change, but certainly that decision has not been made."

The union's leaked communication with Mike Devereux implies that the Commodore, after 2014, will go to front-wheel drive. If the design work for such a car is headed overseas, the question of manufacturing the large car at Elizabeth is left hanging, although Lonsdale points out that the Cruze is being built here in the same plant. Without Commodore being built here the company might have to put an end to Cruze production as well, unless the small car can carry the weight of local production alone.

Conversely, if the production plant is already building one front-drive model at Elizabeth, there's no reason it couldn't build two on the same line — the second car being a Commodore/Commodore successor. For that matter, a second vehicle built on the same production line as Cruze could be whatever is popular in the market at the time — SUVs, LCVs… whatever. All of this is some way off in the future, Lonsdale explained.

"We're building Cruze; our manufacturing facilities are very flexible... we're still looking at options [and] nothing has been decided."

Contrary to what is presumed to be concerns from the engineering union about the future for engineers employed by Holden, Lonsdale says that the R&D effort at Fishermans Bend is already recognised globally for work carried out and meeting a high standard — frequently on projects that have no bearing on locally-manufactured products.

"The business has changed... we don't just engineer and design cars that are going to be sold in Australia. We do a lot of work engineering and designing cars that we never see here. We do a lot of work for GM, for products that will never be driven on our roads."

Lonsdale subsequently cited locally developed concept cars, some of which have resulted in production versions, such as Cruze hatch and Colorado, Denali XT, Orlando MPV7 and Volt MPV5. Holden wouldn't be project manager for these cars without the support of GM management in North America.

The statement issued by Holden today follows, undersigned by the company's Director of External Communications:

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