The Toronto Star reports that Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) president Ken Lewenza is repeating his call for import restrictions to protect his members’ livelihoods. But the chairman of the union’s bargaining committee isn’t making it a “do or die” precondition for Canadian bailout bucks for GM. “The union has repeatedly told Ottawa to fix the trade problem and limit imports, but Buckley would not comment on whether the federal and Ontario governments should refuse GM’s current requests for loans if the company plans to increase imports here.” Meanwhile, Lewenza said there are “multiple proposals for active workers which are much different” than what Chrysler employees recently accepted—so that company could qualify for Canadian aid. That said, “We are close to the end of our ability to give . . . Sooner or later, GM and the federal and provincial governments will realize that.” Reassuringly enough, there is some common ground: both (all?) sides agree that GM’s pension plan is in far worse shape than Chrysler’s after years of minimal contributions, made possible by a special provision in provincial legislation. See how that works?
Good old Kenny. He is old school union and still can’t believe he can’t bring the company to it’s knees.
There will soon be barely any GM production in Ontario.
They moved the pickup truck production from Oshawa to Silao, Mexico and are soon going to close the Windsor tranny plant. GM St. Catherines has also seen plant closures and it is unlikely they will ever build the new tranny plant that was promised. What does Oshawa have for product besides the Camaro? They closed so much you can’t keep track. So there are a handful of CAW GM employees left and a much larger number on pension. This is like closing the barn door after the cows have left.
If you still have a job, you have more to give.
(Attending another layoff ‘party’ at lunch today to send-off the next batch)
Would a Canadian built Honda or Toyota be an import versus a Canadian built Chevy?
Lewenza still doesn’t realize, or won’t admit, the CAW priced its members out of the market. It killed the goose that laid golden eggs.
GM Canada will employ only about 4,400 production workers in 2014, down from 10,300 last year and far below the late 1980s when it had a production workforce of almost 40,000 at three assembly plants in Oshawa, two more in suburban Scarborough and Ste.-Thérèse, Que., and sprawling parts operations in St. Catharines and Windsor.
The future prospects for GM’s Oshawa site are very grim indeed. I don’t believe that it was the workers who got them into the pickle that they are in so why are they being strongarmed into giving up more and more. It’s at the point where a new contract is good for maybe a month before GM wants to re-negotiate it. GM Oshawa has always been competitive and efficient and consistantly at the top as far a quality of assembly. If they were given a decent mass market car to build to compete with Corrolla/Civic etc. they could (and would) beat all comers. What have they got? Camaro: great landing, wrong airport, Impala: Way past it’s ‘sell by’ date and about as appealing as a traffic accident, Allure: Well, great car if you are in your 70’s! What are the transplants building in Ontario? Civics, Corollas, Matrix(s), Rav4’s, Pilots. Some of their most popular and profitable models. Sure, maybe the playing field will be leveled as far as the CAW wages and benifits are concerned with respect to the transplants, but what about product? I shake my head in dismay!
Isn’t the Canadian/Ontario Gov’t throwing 6 or 7 bil at these guys to keep jobs in Canada?
Chrysler isn’t going to be building anything here by then, so that’s less than 5000 jobs left…
1.5 million per job saved.
I hate cars.
Would a Canadian built Honda or Toyota be an import versus a Canadian built Chevy?
That’s a good question, and one I’d like to see Lewenza answer, without lying about “oh, they’re just assembled here”.
I’m reminded of the CAW 222/Support Local Jobs/Buy Domestic” that I saw on the back of a Mexican-built Uplander this morning.
Sniff-Sniff.
Maybe he could get Sally Struthers to cry for him…It would be more effective.
Starting a car company and running it how you want is still an option…Or you could get your murdering psychopath politicians to steal one for you.
I’m in the acception stage now.What will be will be.
GM Oshawa has always been competitive and efficient and consistantly at the top as far a quality of assembly. If they were given a decent mass market car to build to compete with Corrolla/Civic etc. they could (and would) beat all comers.
Yes, they could. But the future is more or less writ thus: low-margin, mass-market cars will not be made in North America by GM or Chrysler
What have they got? Camaro: great landing, wrong airport, Impala: Way past it’s ’sell by’ date and about as appealing as a traffic accident, Allure: Well, great car if you are in your 70’s!
Technically, the Allure/Lacrosse isn’t made in Oshawa anymore. The smaller Buick moved the Epsilon platform and will be assembled alongside the Malibu.
Oshawa is a sad case: they’re by far GM’s best plant, and they probably thought that as such, they were secure. There was some hope that, if the Zeta platform had come to fruition, that the new Impala, G8 and a Buick to be Named Later would have been built alongside the Camaro. Now, truck production will move to Mexico (Save Jobs, Buy Domestic!) and the Camaro really can’t carry a whole plant, as the former GM workers in St. Therese can attest.
What are the transplants building in Ontario? Civics, Corollas, Matrix(s), Rav4’s, Pilots.
Do they build the Pilot? I know they build the MDX and Ridgeline. I also know that Cambridge (Toyota) builds the Lexus RX. But your point is an accurate one: if Toyota can build Corollas—even with union labour at a GM plant (NUMMI)—why can’t GM manage to built small cars that people will want to buy at a reasonable price at it’s other North American plants?
(And then there’s the Edge/MKX and Flex/MK-whatever built in Oakville. Not bad cars, and Ford handled Oakville far better than GM is handling Oshawa.)
“If they were given a decent mass market car to build to compete with Corrolla/Civic etc. they could (and would) beat all comers. What have they got? Camaro: great landing, wrong airport, Impala: Way past it’s ’sell by’ date and about as appealing as a traffic accident, Allure: Well, great car if you are in your 70’s! What are the transplants building in Ontario? Civics, Corollas, Matrix(s), Rav4’s, Pilots. Some of their most popular and profitable models. Sure, maybe the playing field will be leveled as far as the CAW wages and benifits are concerned with respect to the transplants, but what about product? I shake my head in dismay!”
I doubt they would “beat all comers” and that’s not being disrespectful to the people who work there.
The end product can only be as good as the sum of its parts. Having owned a good number of General Motors products over the past 35 years I’ve found the quality of the individual components has deteriorated. A $500 turnsignal on a 2 yr old Impala? A fried alternator on a Sierra truck with 100K on it?
The workers could do everything right and build a “perfect” car but if GM has handicapped them with second rate components the end result is a second rate car.
After 100 years in business it’s really sad that they can’t build a better product or at least not rub salt into the customers wounds by gouging them for yet another inferior replacement part.
even with union labour at a GM plant (NUMMI)—
NUMMI has a different much simpler contract than the regular CAW/UAW contract.
NUMMI is likely a goner if Toyota sales don’t increase.
NUMMI has a different much simpler contract than the regular CAW/UAW contract.
The point is, the ?AW allowed itself to negotiate a fair contract both at NUMMI and Spring Hill. In both cases, it was demonstrated that GM could build different/better cars and that the Union wasn’t really the boogeyman.
That GM didn’t learn dick from Saturn or NUMMI isn’t the Union’s fault. Other things are, but the core issue is not one of labour.
NUMMI is likely a goner if Toyota sales don’t increase.
NUMMI is a goner only because it builds nothing that isn’t more effective to build at another higher-utilized plant (San Antonio, Tijuana, Cambridge), much like Oshawa, and not due to any real failing of NUMMI itself. The problem is that GM can’t bring itself to apply the lessons it learned at it’s better plants to it’s underperformers.
The UAW was working to get that Spring Hill/ Saturn contract undone as soon as the ink dried on it. Rather than hiring and training from the locals there [as promised]the UAW insisted on filling in hires with union hacks and agitators.The cast offs that hadn’t made the grade in the first hirings.
The Saturn contract made the rest of the union staffed GM factories look bad and the other UAW membership and leaders couldn’t stand it. The productivity bonuses pissed off the other members in GM’s other plants and caused a lot of animosity toward Spring Hill and Saturn, as if more wasn’t already needed.
Nothing wrong with the union worker. The union worker is not the boogeyman. Big difference between the worker and the union elite.
UAW policies and the thugs running the union finally succeeded in getting enough of their own malcontents into Spring Hill so that the contract,[ a single page or just a few pages,btw.] was voted out as of Dec. 31st 2004.
All well documented on Saturn Fans and the book “In The Rings Of Saturn”.
The Camaro plant – Oshawa – continues to be misunderstood. The Camaro is a low volume high profile car that is meant as a launch platform for an assembly process, called Flex (unimaginatively IMHO) that can build any car GM wants with a minimum of fast retooling. It has been GM’s past practice to launch new processes with a similar low volume higher profile model before the substance shows up.
What’s to be built beyond the Camaro. GM committed to something they called, unimaginatively, something like Project X. But rest assured. If GM survives they will need Oshawa. If Detroit’s GM had no plans for Oshawa past the Camaro they wouldn’t have bothered. Even now. Oshawa would already be gone.
@Bigsby I can’t help but agree with your thoughts on the flex plant.With some time on my hands before I retired,I walked about a mile of the Camaro line.
I can’t find the words to describe,just how high tech this baby is.I’ve seen robotic’s and lots of automated machinery,but the flex line looks like something from Star Wars.
Unless GM Canada completly liqidates there is no way the flex plant won’t prosper.
But these days? who f—en knows?
JG: “I hate cars.”
I love cars.
It’s politicians that I hate.
Ken reminds me of the old saying:
“There are three kinds of people; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what happened”. Guess where Ken belongs.
rtx nailed it.
Oshawa’s assembly is damn good. The quality of the parts they are given to assemble is the problem, and continues to be.
The decision making process for this nickel and diming originates where? (That’s a rhetorical question of course.)
Carry on with the management bonuses.