Canadian labor union Unifor has announced that General Motors will be temporarily laying off workers at its CAMI plant in Ingersoll next month.
In a statement, the workers’ union said the first layoffs are scheduled for the week of September 30th. More layoff weeks are also planned for the final quarter of 2019 in December, the release said.
GM has not yet confirmed when the next subsequent layoffs will happen after the provided September 30th date. According to GM’s dedicated information page for the two million-square-foot facility, 2,517 employees currently work there.
“It’ll be everybody in the plant other than our trades — they’ll keep working, just fixing stuff and preparing stuff,” Unifor Local 88 representative Mike Van Boekel told Global News. “It’s just for one week at a time, so it is bad that way — money’s always tight, people live on budgets — but hopefully it’s only two or three weeks and we just get going and keep going again in the new year.”
CAMI plant in 2017
Ingersoll builds the Chevrolet Equinox crossover only. It began building the nameplate for the 2004 model year and built the second-generation version of the vehicle from 2009 through to 2017. Production of the third-generation Equinox began there in 2017.
The Equinox’s sister vehicle, the GMC Terrain, is built at GM’s San Luis Potosi plant in Mexico. The nameplate was formerly built in Ingersoll; however, GM axed 600 Canadian jobs and sent production of the crossover to Mexico when the new model was introduced for 2017.
Unifor also said the Mexican plant that also builds the Chevrolet Equinox will be facing cuts, with GM set to cut a shift at the plant on August 12th, bringing it from three shifts to two. The Equinox is also built at the GM Alvear plant in Argentina for South American consumption and its Wuhan plant outside of Shanghai for Chinese consumption.
CAMI plant in 2017
Chevrolet Equinox sales were up 7.41 percent in Q1 2019 compared to Q1 2018, with GM moving 88,500 examples of the crossover. This was also a first-quarter sales record for the nameplate.
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Comments
This doesn’t look good for a fairly new vehicle.
Especially one that is the de-facto replacement for the Cruze.
It’s industry wide, not GM. Ford is getting a good haircut this year with it’s layoffs, Toyota and Honda also.