General Motors workers and employees are officially on strike in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, at the CAMI plant responsible for assembling one of the automaker’s best-selling vehicles: the 2018 Chevrolet Equinox.
It’s a blow to GM as the CAMI plant has long been one of the automaker’s most productive; workers have built crossovers exclusively for years, and the market’s shift to CUVs is well documented. According to The Detroit Free Press, workers went on strike on September 17, 2017, at 10:59 p.m. after a new labor contract was not reached in ongoing discussions between Unifor and GM.
“While General Motors of Canada and our Unifor partners have made very positive progress on several issues over the past weeks, the Company is disappointed that we were not able to complete a new agreement. We encourage Unifor to resume negotiations and to continue working together to secure a competitive agreement,” a GM Canada spokesperson said.
Tensions at the CAMI plant have been high after GM laid off 400 workers last month. The cuts stem from the relocation of GMC Terrain production to Mexico. Canada had been home to both Equinox and Terrain production for years, but the move makes the Equinox the facility’s only product.
Unifor leaders were working to secure new investment at the CAMI plant amid Terrain production relocating, and also brought forth shop floor issues, and wage and benefit improvements to the table. After the layoffs, the CAMI plant employs about 2,450 workers.
Comments
Grabbing my popcorn here.
Good Luck CAMI ! In this enviroment where most assembly plants are very flexible and can build different vehicles on the same line , These folks are right to feel nervous after GM decided to move Terrain production to Mexico and laying people off at this plant building only one product .
Years ago even vehicles built north of the border and sold here were looked down on , but people got used to it as the UAW looked at the old CAW as their brothers and sisters .
Now with the U.S auto companies continuing to build more and more vehicles south of our border is really becoming a sore spot in the UAW . These corporations look at the profit margins and how to get the biggest return in their investment . They don’t have the same patriotic virtue as much as the rest of the American population . Profit is the biggest determination in every move or decision they make .
So CAMI having the biggest ever vote to strike may just hurt them because of the small workforce that is left over . It would be interesting to see just how many of those Mexican built Nox’s are sold here , when those suv’s could be built at the CAMI plant instead .
PROFIT is king .
Certainly for big publically listed corporates, it’s all about the profits (which shareholders want to see annually from their share stakeholdings). Workers be damned. Look at any of the Fortune 100 companies and how they handle their employee “welfare”….
Vehicles got so expensive because of the union
The price for CAMI to assemble an Equinox is approximately $1100.00…. So now tell me that employee wages are hurting sales of the $40,000.00 vehicle. If you can’t say anything intelligent it’s best to say nothing at all, moron.
Canada is a perfect example.
You can raise the pay but were does the money come from? Higher prices. Then that make the cost of living even higher.
Just giving people more money just creates a viscous circle of more pay higher prices and no one wins.
This and the generous goverment programs have lead to where average houses in many Canadian cities costing $750,000 to a million dollars for what here in the states might be $250,000.
You want to get ahead get better educated, better skilled and get a better job.
Everyone wants to be a millionaire but they all still want to shop at Walmart.
To be honest being a Millionaire today just mean middle class.
The best things in life are not free or easy. Improve yourself and just done expect to get more putting a screw in a hole on an assembly line.
GM can pay the workers more but they will raise the prices then others will raise their prices and it all ends in the same place.
With stocks stagnate at GM at $35 a share or Fird at $11 they need to show profits. They are companies not welfare systems. They often pay more than many others so cut the BS that their workers suffer.
Many make much more than many on this site.
Solidarity to the workers fighting for their rights and livelyhood!
GM management seems so inept here. They must have had SOME idea this was going to happen, yet they continued offering incentives on an already hot selling, brand new vehicle, that was in short supply? There aren’t enough of them on dealer lots right now, much less after a prolonged strike.
Why not stick to MSRP until this was dealt with? Why discount a brand new hot seller?
AND – why not head off this strike in the first place?
The assembly plants operating now are not the same as even a decade ago . Automation is what is the biggest job killer in the industry . Parts plants now ship in complete modules and the workers are really just snapping the parts together and a new car rolls off the end of the line .
CAMI / Unifor really needs to be aware that GM is going to produce vehicles where it is the most profitable . Mexico has two plants building the Equinox and one the new Terrain , and from what I hear is that the one plant isn’t even running at full capacity yet and could easily take over CAMI’s prouction which would possibly close the plant .
The plant does have a good reputation and that is a good thing but the way vehicles are built now just about any plant can build them .
I’m all for workers rights , but these folks are paid well for their overtime , and yes it gets old after awhile . But they are building a hot seller and maybe just keep things the way they are and hope that their friends layed off come back soon . It sounds as if the CAMI plant is really just building the extra capacity for now and when Mexico’s plants are running at full capacity GM could close the plant , it’s expensive to run a plant with so few workers at less than what the plant could produce if they had another product to build .