WHAT’S THE PLAN FOR AUTO SECTOR?
The writing was on the wall for Oshawa plant many years ago
As Ottawa, Ontario take their pitch for jobs to Detroit Auto Show, Jennifer Wells asks where were the innovative minds years ago when the writing was on the wall for GM’s Oshawa plant?
The dichotomy could not have been more clear.
As Unifor members took to the microphone in Windsor on Friday morning amidst a vibrant rally, railing against the planned closure of the Oshawa General Motors assembly plant, GM CEO Mary Barra took to the mic at the company’s capital markets day in Detroit to crow about the automaker’s performance and its plans for the future. At 11:15 a.m. the stock was up $2.84 from Thursday’s close.
On the corporate side of the river: the primacy of “shareholder value.”
On the labour side of the river: the 2,500 autoworkers who will soon enough be out of work.
“Right across the water GM is holding an investor effort pitching its corporate greed direction,” bellowed Unifor’s Dave Cassidy, first to the mic before a sea of waving red Unifor flags. “Canada did not give you a bailout only for you to bail out of Canada.”
Over at GM headquarters Barra noted reduced structural costs, considerable cash savings — $6 billion (U.S.) by the end of 2020 — and announced that the Cadillac marque has been chosen as the automaker’s lead electric vehicle, underscoring GM’s commitment to restore Cadillac’s standing as a true luxury brand. The market was pleased.
This is the bifurcated backdrop against which Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains will travel to Detroit
WELLS continued on B5
this week, meeting with GM representatives.
I can’t imagine that GM will be substantially moved.
For her part, Barra has somewhat smoothed political concerns in the U.S., which loses two assembly plants and two parts plants, through job transfers for dislocated workers. Of the 2,800 U.S. workers facing job loss south of the border, 1,500 have volunteered for transfer and 703 have already been reassigned — 418 from the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant and 285 from the Lordstown plant in Warren, Ohio — with the company pledging “a plan for every person.”
At Friday’s rally, OPSEU president Smokey Thomas made a shout out to Ford to “get off your lazy a—.” Which I guess is a call to find some political leverage this side of the border, where the plan for every person leans sorrily toward outplacement services.
I suspect that Unifor president Jerry Dias’ rebranding of General Motors as “Greedy Motors” isn’t going to help much.
What I’m getting at here, in a tortured way, is that Unifor made a public relations play on Friday, attempting to capitalize on the richness of the HQ proceedings in contrast with the dire straits at home.
The rally made for OK viewing. (Message to Unifor: find more women. One is not enough.)
In substance, the rally fell short.
What precisely does the union propose?
For that matter, where were the innovation minds in Canada years ago when the writing was on the wall for the Oshawa plant? As Minister Bains went on to plan for superclusters and hubs, what was the deep plan for the auto shop? How hard has Ottawa worked on this file since coming to power more than three years ago? Where was Queen’s Park? What role did Dias play? What were his strategies and tactics?
It wasn’t all that long ago that General Motors was singing the high praises of Steve Carlisle, who, as managing director of GM Canada, lead what the company called the resurgence of the GM franchise in this country, claiming the No. 1 spot in Canadian auto sales in 2017. Carlisle started his career with the car company as a co-op student at the Oshawa truck assembly plant in 1982. Last April, he was moved south to head the Cadillac division, where it sounds as though happiness reigns today.
I wonder how it feels for Mr. Carlisle to see the company he has spent his career working for so radically trimming its presence in Canada.
I wonder if Mr. Carlisle’s tenure could have been an important one in laying the groundwork for the future of the Oshawa plant.
I wonder under what circumstances Oshawa could have been part of the car of the future.
The recourse now for angry workers is to call for a boycott of made-in-Mexico GM autos. As of Friday, Unifor had not yet made that call.
Instead, Jerry Dias put GM on notice that the union is going to go big and loud at the upcoming Detroit Auto Show. “We’ll have a message,” the union leader made clear.
“You haven’t seen anything yet.”
What we have seen is a Unifor ad campaign: “Hey GM, you want to sell here, build here.”
Mary Barra was covered in glory Friday, at least in the community of investment analysts and happy shareholders pleased with the automaker’s forecast of higher than expected earnings. She noted the stresses on families affected by the closures. She seemed supremely confident that the company was already doing everything it responsibly needed to do in this situation. GM was about to unveil its Cadillac ST6 crossover in Detroit, she added. As a PR play, GM’s performance was masterful. Shares closed at $37.18, up $2.45.