Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., the world's biggest carmaker, said Adam Opel AG division employees in Bochum, Germany, ended a seven-day wildcat strike against the company's job-cut plans in Europe.

Parts shipments from Bochum will resume to General Motors' Opel and Vauxhall carmaking plants across Europe as the plant resumes work, the Detroit-based carmaker said in a faxed statement.

The end of the strike ``basically paves the way for negotiations, which we think is exactly the right way and was our intention all the time,'' General Motors Europe President Carl- Peter Forster said in Detroit following a speech at a trade show. ``It's good we sit at the table and we can now make progress.''

The Bochum plant had been shut since General Motors said on Oct. 14 that it will cut as many as 12,000 jobs in Europe. The carmaker's business in the region is about to post a fifth consecutive full-year loss, adding to $3 billion in losses in the past four years. General Motors said most of the jobs eliminated will be in Germany.

Stoppages at Bochum expanded to Opel's Ruesselsheim, Germany, headquarters, where workers staged protests yesterday. The Ruesselsheim and Antwerp, Belgium, plants aren't making cars today because of a shortage of parts including axles and doors, Marc Kempe, a General Motors spokesman, said.

Production is also stopping this afternoon at the Vauxhall division's Ellesmere Port, England, plant as components run out, he said. The companies' other factories in Europe, including Poland and the Saab carmaking division in Sweden, are continuing to make vehicles, Kempe added.

Opel said earlier this week that it's talking with worker representatives on keeping plants in Germany open beyond 2010 under the Europewide reorganization.

German Economics and Labor Minister Wolfgang Clement may travel to Detroit for talks with General Motors executives about the future of the German factories.

The German government is ``already in contract with Detroit,'' Clement told reporters in Berlin.

Clement said last week that General Motors' cutback plan ``points to management mistakes.''

General Motors shares fell as much as 29 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $37.71 and were down 0.3 percent at $37.90 as of 9:53 a.m. in New York. The U.S. stock is down 8.2 percent since Oct. 14, when the carmaker cut its 2004 global profit target, announced the cutbacks in Europe and said operations in the region may not become profitable in 2005.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy Van Loon in Frankfurt at jvanloon@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: October 20, 2004 09:57 EDT