SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) -- Workers at a General Motors plant in Brazil began staging slowdowns on Tuesday to protest the layoff of 800 temporary workers, union officials said.
Union spokesman Rodrigo Correia said that some 3,000 morning shift workers "paralyzed their assembly line activities for one hour" and another 3,000 workers of the evening shift are expected to the same.
More slowdowns are scheduled for Thursday, he added.
He said the union is demanding that General Motors Corp. rescind the dismissals and grant job stability to all of its more than 8,000 workers at its Sao Jose dos Campos plant.
He said a full-fledged strike is not being considered "for now."
In a statement issued Tuesday, GM's local subsidiary said it had revised domestic sales forecasts for the first quarter "as a result of the international financial crisis."
GM Vice President Jose Carlos Pinheiro Neto told the Globo TV Network the layoffs were part of the company's efforts to adjust production to slumping demand.
"In September, the industry as a whole was expecting sales of 3.2 million vehicles," Pinheiro Neto said. "Today, we will be happy if sales come to 2.5 million units in 2009."
Carlos Augusto Souza, a GM spokesman, said the company is expecting its 2009 Brazil sales to be 10 percent less than the 550,000 vehicles sold in 2008.