Unifor digs in against GM
Jerry Dias is fed up. At labour rallies, press conferences, anywhere people might listen, the head of Unifor has for more than two months been expressing a deep frustration about how General Motors has broken one promise too many with its plan to close its Oshawa Assembly Plant.
“There’s nobody on the face of this earth that lies more than General Motors,” said Dias in a recent interview.
“That’s why we’re so furious, that’s why we’re running this campaign, and that’s why we’re slamming them every single day.”
Last weekend’s Super Bowl ad against GM, a walk-out at a parts supplier Friday, and the union’s call for a partial boycott of GM vehicles are just the latest efforts to pressure the company financially, and to try and keep the looming closure of the storied plant in the eyes of the government and public.
GM, however, has shown no sign of wavering in its decision, maintaining that the shutdown is part of a needed effort to become more efficient, and that it has already committed to generous retraining and retirement packages.
With the two adversaries dug in, the dispute is likely to be a drawn out affair as Unifor looks to protect unionized jobs — and its reputation — amid a fastevolving auto sector.
“It’s really understandable why Unifor is all-in on this one,” said Steven Tufts, an associate professor at York University who studies labour.
“For Unifor as a union, to make them more relevant, even to members outside of the auto sector, they have to show they can fight.”
The union, however, is fighting against a shrinking company. In 2007 General Motors was the world’s largest automaker, a titan of industry built on a century of development. But highprofile stumbles including its bankruptcy, bailout, and efforts to right the ship have left the company’s production at about half of its peak.
Production cutbacks have had a direct effect on Canadian autoworkers, who have already endured closures or layoffs at several Ontario operations over the past decade. Dias maintains that several rounds of cuts have arrived not long after assurances from GM that they weren’t coming.