CARACAS – Workers at a General Motors truck-assembly plant in Venezuela have gone on strike to protest “unjustified” layoffs, the media reported Thursday.

The plant in Mariara, a town 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of Caracas, has been paralyzed since Tuesday, strikers’ spokesman Jimy Sanchez told Caracas daily El Universal.

“We took this decision because of massive and unjustified layoffs” of workers belonging to one of the 36 cooperatives that comprise a total of 400 workers at the assembly plant, Sanchez said. He did not indicate how many workers GM de Venezuela had laid off.

Sanchez said the strike at the Mariara plant – which churns out some 500 trucks a month, according to press figures – will last until the workers are re-hired and the company agrees to negotiate a new contract with the cooperatives.

No GMV spokesperson has commented on the work stoppage thus far.

GMV ceased production for three months last year, saying that it had run out of materials because of the government’s tardiness in providing dollars to pay for needed inputs.

Venezuela’s leftist government established exchange controls in February 2003 after a costly opposition-led general strike.

The company’s two plants employ a total of 4,000 people, and support an additional 74,000 jobs with the firm’s Venezuelan suppliers.

GMV, Venezuela’s auto sales leader for the past 29 years, says it invested roughly $34 million in 2008. EFE