Steve Girsky continues to rack up his future-CEO-credentials with Opel officially naming him Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Girsky also serves as Vice Chairman of General Motors. Dr. Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug was also reelected as head of the works council of Adam Opel AG.
Opel Supervisory Board Announces Steve Girsky As New Chairman
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Girsky has been reelected as chairperson of the Opel Supervisory Council. And Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug, who continues to be the works council chairperson, has been re-elected as vice-chairperson of the Supervisory Board (I write this in capital letters because it is a committee stipulated by the German law on “Aktiengesellschaften” (stock companies)), and its specific composition as described below by the law on “Mitbestimmung” (co-management), article 7.
But the council as a whole had been newly elected by the capital owners on the one hand and the works council on the other. The board is composed of 20 persons, including the chairperson (Girsky). For companies of the size of the Adam Opel AG, the law requires 10 ten representatives of the owner plus 10 representatives of the workers on the board. The worker’s side is represented by the chairpersons of each of the four plants in Germany, plus Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug as the chairperson of the overall works council for the whole company. Since he is also the chairperson of the Rüsselsheim works council, this is represented by its deputy chairperson, Petra Deichmann. Then there are two representatives of the IG Metall (metal workers union), Robert T. King, the UAW President, plus a tenth member (the law requries 7 representatives of the company’s workers, plus three union representatives).
The capital side is represented by:
• Steve Girsky, Vice Chairman, Corporate Strategy, Business Development, Global Product Planning & Global Purchasing and Supply Chain; Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Adam Opel AG
• Daniel Ammann, GM Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer
• Mary T. Barra, GM Senior Vice President, Global Product Development
• John A. Calabrese. GM Vice President, Global Vehicle Engineering
• Stephen K. Carlisle, GM Vice President, Global Planning and Program Management
• Melissa A. Howell, GM Vice President, Global Human Resources
• Timothy E. Lee, GM Vice President and President, International Operations
• Grace D. Lieblein, GM Vice President, Global Purchasing & Supply Chain
• Riccardo Ventura. Vice President & General Counsel, Europe
plus, of course,
Why John P.Stapleton, GM Vice President, Performance Improvement, is not marked (by bold face) as representing the owner, is beyond me. I think this is just a typographical error. In the English list of the “Executive Biographies”, he is even marked with an asterisk as saying he is representing the worker’s side. The Frankfurt motor show next door is exerting its pressure on the Opel press people, it seems.
The formatting error re John P.Stapleton has been corrected in the mean time. The tenth board member representing the labor side is a representing the “Leitende Angestellte” or “leading personnel”, or “managerial employees” or however one could translate this to English.
BTW, the Bochum works council is being represented by two people, just like the Rüsselsheim one.
I didn’t know that the works council chairperson Wolfgang Schäfer-Klug has a PhD (“Dr.”) degree — that signifies, I guess, that je does not come from the shop floor, but from the development center or commercial administration. There 3’300 workers in the factory, but about 6’000 in the technical development and design center. It could well be that there are now more people with an university degree working in the Rüsselsheim Opel plant than hourly workers in the production.