FRANKFURT (AFP) - Nearly 40,000 people in Germany, backed by expressions of support elsewhere in Europe, took to the streets to protest plans by US auto giant General Motors to axe about one-fifth of its European workforce and possibly even close a plant.
Police estimated that about 20,000 people demonstrated in the northwestern town of Bochum, home to one of four factories belonging to GM's German unit Opel and currently the centre of the wave of protests.
The crowds of demonstrators included not only workers and their families, but also colleagues from other car makers around Germany such as Volkswagen and Porsche who travelled to Bochum in a show of solidarity.
Later on Tuesday, the Bochum workers were scheduled to vote whether to return to work after halting production for the past six days.
They have downed tools ever since GM originally unveiled its plans to slash 12,000 jobs in Europe -- including 10,000 in Germany alone -- as part of a 500-million-euro (624-million-dollar) cost-cutting drive last Thursday.
The workers in Germany received moral support from thousands of employees at other sites around Europe on Tuesday in a joint Europe-wide day of protest.
Police estimated that 14,000-16,000 people took to the streets in Opel's home town of Ruesselsheim, while about 3,000 workers also laid down tools at a factory in Kaiserslautern.
German demonstrators received the moral support of thousands of employees at other GM sites around Europe. Protests were of a more nominal nature, with GM workers in Britain laying down tools only briefly.
And there no stoppages at Opel's Polish factory in Gliwice or the Spanish plant in Zaragoza, even if workers there pledged solidarity with their German colleagues.
It is the Bochum factory, seen as one of the likely candidates for closure, that is currently the centre of the wave of protests.
It supplies key parts and components to most other GM factories around Europe and fallout from the six days of stoppages was already making itself felt at other sites on Tuesday.
Production of Opel's Vectra models at the firm's main factory in Ruesselsheim near Frankfurt, for example, ground to a halt owing to a lack of exhaust pipes, which are made in Bochum, a company spokesman said.
Ruesselsheim is also seen as a possible candidate for closure.
And production at Opel's northern Belgium factory in Antwerp was also interrupted because of supply problems.
Nevertheless, behind the outwardly confrontational stance, talks between management and employee representatives seem to be making progress.
The head of the works council at the Bochum factory, Dietmar Hahn, said he was satisfied with the initial round of talks on Monday.
Employee representatives had succeeded in "breaking management's position of blockade", he said.
And the head of the powerful IG Metall labour union Juergen Peters also said he saw chances for a possible agreement between unions and management.
Peter said that a statement released earlier by Opel in Ruesselsheim, in which management pledged to seek a "joint solution" with unions to safeguard the group's German manufacturing facilities, was a good start.
It was "a good condition for achieving a breakthrough", Peters said.
In the statement, Opel had said management was seeking a "joint solution for making the Ruesselsheim and Bochum factories so competitive that they can be retained as car manufacturing plants beyond 2010".
Nevertheless, both Hahn and Peters stopped short of calling for a return to work, a decision which would have to be made by workers themselves later on Tuesday.
A member GM Europe's works council, Klaus Hemmerling, called directly for a return to work.
"Let's negotiate now," he told demonstrators. "We're prepared to start making cars again. I can say that for many colleagues," he said.
The head of the regional branch of IG Metall in North Rhine-Westphalia, Detlef Wetzel, also welcomed the initial round of talks on Monday.
"There won't be any mass lay-offs. That's the good news of the day," he said.