Production stopped at the Opel plant in Belgium

Employees at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant in north-west England have been sent home due to a parts shortage.

"Protest action in Germany means some key components aren't getting through," a Transport and General Workers' Union spokesman told BBC News.

Loss-making GM Europe wants to cut 500m euros ($623.8m; �347m) from its budget.

Opel pledge

As strike action entered its sixth day, workers and unions are meeting in Germany on Wednesday to decide how to proceed.

A day of protests took place at GM plants across Europe on Tuesday.

Employees at the Ellesmere Port plant had taken part in a one-hour consultation meeting on Tuesday, in which messages of solidarity were sent to GM employees in Germany, who are expected to bear the brunt of the job cuts.

Vauxhall workers have been told there will probably be more than 400 jobs cut in the UK - 340 at the Ellsemere Port plant in Merseyside and 94 at the van factory in Luton.

GM Europe Brands: Saab, Vauxhall, Opel Sales: 1.8m vehicles (2003) Employees: 63,000 Factories: 11 (Germany, Sweden, UK) Finances: $161m loss H1 2004 See General Motors' share price

Unions have said that about 4,000 jobs will be lost at the Bochum plant in the Ruhr Valley in western Germany.

On Tuesday, the cessation in production of parts at the factory forced Opel to stop production in Ruesselsheim, Germany and Antwerp in Belgium.

Management at Opel have said they will try to find a way of ensuring the survival of its main factories in Germany - including the Bochum plant - beyond 2010 while finding "socially acceptable" ways of cutting back on the numbers of employees.

A spokesman for GM Europe said that once the Bochum workers turned up for their shifts then production could begin "very, very quickly".

GM determined

Analysts have said GM is determined to press ahead with the cost saving measures, despite the threat of widening strike action.

The firm has not yet confirmed which of its 11 European plants will be affected, but GM's German sites appear most vulnerable because of high labour costs.

Germany has the second-highest labour costs in the world, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

And of the German facilities, staff at Bochum, which makes Astra and Zafira models, look the most at risk after GM recently said the plant had a "competitiveness issue".

GM Europe lost $161m in the first half of 2004, up from $68m one year earlier, according to the latest figures.

GM's European operations currently employ 64,000 people in total, and make the Opel, Vauxhall and Saab brands.