Union blockades GM Canada headquarters
Automotive News | June 4, 2008 - 9:30 am EST
TORONTO (Reuters) — Angry autoworkers blockaded the entrance to General Motors of Canada headquarters in Oshawa, Ontario, on Wednesday, one day after GM said it would shut its Oshawa truck plant.
"We’re not allowing any GM of Canada employees to enter the headquarters building," said Chris Buckley, of the Canadian Auto Workers union, which says 2,600 jobs will go if the truck plant closes.
"We are going to stay here until General Motors reverses the decision they made yesterday, or at the very least commits to a product for the Oshawa truck plant, or sits down face-to-face with this union to try to explain why they have broken our brand new agreement."
GM said it would meet with the union in Detroit on Friday.
TV pictures showed some 100 autoworkers on a road leading to the Oshawa plant, which is to be closed as GM tries to shore up a restructuring plan that has been overtaken by a steep decline in U.S. sales of pickup trucks and SUVs in the face of surging gas prices and tighter credit.
Two plants in the United States and one in Mexico are also slated to close.
Up to 750 people, many clad in red T-shirts emblazoned with a white maple leaf and the words "Made in Canada matters," peacefully blocked the road leading to GM’s Canadian headquarters.
"I feel sick about this situation and all I can do is visualize GM workers on the welfare line," said Jim Bedford, a retired GM employee from nearby Bowmanville, Ontario.
The CAW says the closure of the Oshawa plant is a betrayal.GM and the CAW signed a new three-year collective bargaining agreement on May 15 that included a wage freeze and GM promises to boost production in Canada rather than cut it.
Under that deal, GM said it would start producing hybrid versions of two of its trucks at the Oshawa plant.
The plant currently produces the Chevrolet Silverado and the GMC Sierra crew-cab and extended-cab pickup trucks, which GM Canada spokesman Stew Low said are taking the biggest hit of GM’s products in the U.S.
He said the hybrid versions of the Silverado and Sierra would still be built and rolled out at the end of the year, but at other plants, either in the United States or in Mexico.
"Our main customer is the U.S. and there is a huge and very drastic shift away from trucks and SUVs and we have to react to that because we can’t continue to buy vehicles that people aren’t buying," Low said.
U.S. auto sales figures released on Tuesday showed that GM truck sales were down 39 percent in May from May last year. Sales of the Silverado were down 44 percent and those of the GMC Sierra were down 33.9 percent.
