FRANKFURT (REUTERS) – Rainer Einenkel earns a tough living trying to protect the jobs of 7,600 workers in the German city of Bochum who still build Opel Astra compacts and Zafira minivans at the local General Motors plant.

The elected leader of the factory’s works council is already a veteran of challenging decisions by GM’s Detroit headquarters. And now that billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is prodding GM to explore joining the alliance between Renault and Nissan, Einenkel’s job could be about to get harder.

A deal bringing GM into the Renault-Nissan alliance, being discussed by GM’s board on Friday, could lead to thousands more job cuts across GM Europe.

“We have to expect the worst,” he said via telephone from holiday in northeastern Germany, like the former coal mining heartland around Bochum an economically depressed region burdened by near 20 percent unemployment. “I would break off my vacation at any time if there was a signal from the union that we need to meet to come up with a counter-strategy.”

In October 2004, Einenkel directed the only wildcat strike at GM Europe after its newly appointed American chairman announced plans to slash the mainly German workforce by nearly a fifth to a current level of around 52,000.

Less than two years later, the company is back for more. GM Europe will soon scale back production at its UK plant in Ellesmere Port, northwest England, at the cost of 900 jobs and plans to close a plant in Portugal, eliminating another 1,100.