BERLIN, (Reuters) – Workers at Opel’s Eisenach factory, which was temporarily shut down last week because of chip shortages, accused Stellantis, the owner of the company, of exploiting Germany’s furlough plan to shift production outside of Germany.

Opel has been threatening union officials with furlough. This is in response to an agreement Opel made last year that would prevent any worker from being laid off in Germany. However, this could lead to Opel’s permanent closure.

The Grandland X model that is currently being manufactured in Eisenach will remain at the Sochaux, France plant of the company. Workers fear it could be relocated there permanently.

Uwe Loesche (head of local workers’ council) stated that the “We Will Not Let This Happen to Us” statement, which was published by union IG Metall on Thursday.

Last week, two unions in France issued similar criticisms of Stellantis’ furlough program. They claimed that Stellantis was exploiting the chip shortage to furlough unnecessarily many people and pocket public funds.

Stellantis didn’t immediately reply to a request by IG Metall for comment.

Stellantis was not clear whether production would re-start at its plant. The union reported that Stellantis’s chief executive Carlos Tavares along with other top automakers executives and industry experts predicted the chip crisis would continue into 2022.

In recent months, production in plants throughout France, Italy, USA and the United States has been stopped by the chip crunch. It forecasted that the company would produce just 1.4 Million fewer cars this year.

Analysts believe the 4th-largest carmaker in the world, created earlier this year by a merger between France’s PSA (Fiat Chrysler) and France, is facing a serious overcapacity issue that could cause plant closures. However, CEO Tavares promised that his efforts to improve Opel’s profitability would not result in factory closings.