Dagens Industri writes that according to Swedish TV4 Nyheterna Väst, the car builders at Saab have been told that the production stop will be prolonged for two more weeks. They will however return back to work Tuesday next week to do other chores.
The goal is that Saab can resume the car building on Monday in week 27. The prolonged stop means that there will be additional changes for the employees' vacations.
"This affects everybody related to the car production. It has now been agreed that two of the four vacation weeks will be delayed till later in the year, so that this summer only two weeks vacation will be taken, it will be weeks 30 and 31," said Gunilla Gustavs from Saab's information department.
"It's important for us is to restart the production," Gunilla Gustavs told Swedish Radio P4 Väst, and continued saying that Saab first needs "to reach agreements with all suppliers and get the deliveries coordinated so that they arrive at the factory at right time. We see that this will not happen during this week or next week".
She did not agree that production has stopped because the negotiations with the subcontractors have failed.
"No, absolutely not. Discussions are still ongoing and we hope we can come to terms with everyone and decide on a date to resume production relatively quickly."
When asked if Saab has enough money to pay for the needed supplies, Gustavs said that it's something they are "definitely still working on and that's a discussion between us and our suppliers".
To TTELA Gustavs says that the sale of Saab's property, i.e. building and land, will be part of the funding to restart production. A sale will include a leaseback deal so that Saab will still have access to the needed facilities.
Sven-Åke Berglie, president of the Swedish automotive suppliers association, told Swedish Radio that it was wise decision by Saab to stop production for another two weeks.
"It's better than restarting without having enough money to keep production going", Sven-Åke Berglie said.
When asked how he thinks the suppliers will react to the latest development, he said that they seemed to be very cool about it. "They can just look at the options they got", he said suggesting that the only alternative to producing parts for Saab is no production at all .
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