The future of the Oshawa assembly in Ontario, Canada hangs in the balance at present. General Motors has not announced any new investments into the facility, meaning 2,500 manufacturing jobs may be cut after 2017.
To counter this, union members have threatened to strike at the Oshawa facility if new investments into vehicle production are not made.
According to The Financial Post, GM Canada will announce 1,000 new engineering positions in Oshawa to significantly improve its research and development functions. However, the automaker has not made a decision on the Oshawa plant’s future.
Labor negotiations for Oshawa will conclude later this year, which will give an answer as to what the automaker has planned for the future of Canadian automotive production.
Comments
If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?
If an Impala plant goes on strike and theres no one buying them, would anyone notice?
I’m not an expert in Canadian labor law but is this even an issue the union can strike over?
One of the many problems facing GM Canada is the cost of building product in Canada. The provincial government has raised the cost of electricity in excess of 200% in the past 4 years and there is no end in sight for that cost alone to stop going up. We now have the most expensive electricity prices in North America thanks to a government desperate for every dollar it can lay it’s greedy hands on. Manufacturing, especially large scale manufacturing, is at an all time low here in Ontario because it is simply too costly to do business in the province.
It’s nice that GM is adding white collar jobs, however, they are spread out across the province. The city of Oshawa will find itself in desperate circumstances if all of the GM blue collar jobs disappear.
Colonel Sam would not be impressed with how things are unfolding…
http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/corporate/about/ourhistory/detail
Union threats always remind me of a child having a tantrum.
If they close the plant, just add a 25% tariff on GM vehicles… entering Canada.