Nissan employees protest plant closure in Spain

Employees in Spain of Japanese giant Nissan took to the streets for the second day in a row to protest the closure of three Barcelona plants as the carmaker scales down its global production. Hundreds of workers have surrounded on Friday at least four of Nissan's car dealerships in or around the northeastern city, covering their windows with leaflets reading "Nissan betrays 25,000 families" and "We will keep fighting" among others.

The closures by the end of the year would mean the loss of 3,000 direct jobs, and some 20,000 additional ones in the supply chain could be affected. Both Spain's central government and the regional authorities of Catalonia, where the affected factories are, have vowed to help unions revert the Japanese company's decision. Industry Minister Reyes Maroto on Friday said that the proposal could be a "joint private-public partnership." Although Nissan had been mulling for months to scale down its production in Europe and other parts of the world, the company is suffering like many other automakers from a plunge in demand for vehicles amid the coronavirus pandemic.