General Motors Canada and Unifor reached an agreement this week that will keep the Oshawa Assembly plant open in some capacity, saving hundreds of jobs.
The agreement will “transition the GM Oshawa Assembly operations to parts manufacturing and advanced vehicle testing,” according to a press released the automaker issued this week. The 300 jobs that will be retained is a far cry from the thousands that will be lost, but one aspect of the agreement should provide a semblance of hope for those living in the Oshawa area.
GM Canada and Unifor reach agreement
According to Automotive News Canada, GM has agreed to maintain the line at Oshawa Assembly, along with the plant’s advanced paint shop. This makes it less expensive for GM to resume production at the plant should it ever need additional capacity again. Oshawa Assembly is also a flex line (meaning it can build more than one vehicle type on a single line), which makes allocating a new product there less expensive.
AN Canada points to GM’s Spring Hill plant in Tennessee as an example of a once-idled flex line plant that was maintained and then later brought back to life. GM closed the doors on the facility in 2009 following its bankruptcy, only to bring it back to life for a lowly $61 million in 2011. Today Spring Hill builds the Cadillac XT5 and GMC Acadia.
Artists’ rendition of the AV test track.
For the time being, though, Oshawa Assembly will simply serve as a parts manufacturing site and will stamp some parts for the nearby CAMI plant in Ingersoll. GM is also building a new autonomous and advanced vehicle test track on the factory’s large plot of land, expanding the presence of its Canadian Technical Centre (CTC) operations.
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Source: Automotive News Canada
Comments
The longer a facility sits and remains unused the greater chance that it will never be used again which means folks need to keep pushing and pleading for any type of work for the Oshawa Assembly or risk it being abandoned permanently.
THINK BIGGER. GM could assemble cars for the PSA Groupe in Oshawa. PSA is the owner of the old Vauxal and it’s twin Opel former GM cars. The 3 year waiting period is up now, so the PSA Groupe can now sell the Opel cars back into North America.
Oshawa is on the St Lawrence Seaway system, so it could ship other brands of completed cars and trucks via ocean to South America and Asia using cheaper Canadian labour and power costs than Europe or the USA.