Parts supplier walkout halts lines in Oshawa
Unifor steps up pressure on GM out of ‘sheer frustration ... disgust’
Unifor ratcheted up its fight against General Motors on Tuesday when employees of a parts supplier walked off the job, forcing an unexpected shutdown at the Oshawa Assembly Plant. About 100 workers at Inteva Products in Whitby walked off the job at 8:30 a.m. to protest GM’s planned closure of the Oshawa plant.
Unifor president Jerry Dias said attacks against the company will continue on a daily basis, though he didn’t elaborate on what is planned.
But he added this will be “the worst auto show General Motors will ever face.”
During a media conference at a hotel across the street from the North American International Auto Show, Dias said the walkout will continue until 6:30 a.m. Wednesday.
“The result of this action has led to the Oshawa Assembly Plant being shutdown right now, the major flex plant which is building the Cadillac and the Impala,” said Dias. The reason our members have done that, frankly, is out of sheer frustration. And actually, sheer disgust.”
Inteva supplies car program components to GM assembly plants in Oshawa and Hamtramck. General Motors targeted both plants for closure in its restructuring announcement in November. Based on inventory in the U.S., Dias said the impact of the Inteva walkout would be felt much faster in Oshawa than in Hamtramck. About 100 Unifor members work at Inteva. The union said they face job loss if the GM plant closes in Oshawa. Thousands more people working at other parts and service suppliers face the same fate. “It’s not only our 2,600 members in Oshawa or the other 3,400 nonbargaining unit that are going to be impacted, it’s the total of 14,000 in Ontario and another 10,000 across the country,” said Dias. Many of those people are not “high paid autoworkers,” he said. The top wage at Inteva is $23 an hour.
“Our members of Inteva are getting General Motors’ attention,” said Dias.
“I’m here to tell you that we will get General Motors’ attention again tomorrow, and well will get General Motors’ attention again on Thursday, and we will get their attention again on Friday. Because though (GM CEO) Mary Barra and others are saying ‘sorry the decision is final,’ we don’t view it that way at all.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who met with GM president Mark Reuss and other executives at the auto show, said Tuesday the company told him it will not budge on the decision to shutter the Oshawa plant.
“During our meeting, I once again expressed my commitment to the GM workers in Oshawa and discussed opportunities to support them,” said Ford. “Following a meeting with Unifor, I promised to press General Motors executives to extend operations at the Oshawa plant in order to give the affected workers more time to deal with the impacts of the closure. Despite raising this on repeated instances, I was disappointed to hear that General Motors’ position has not changed.”
Dias said Unifor will not accept that. He said he is not yet calling for a boycott but added the union has “a series of events” planned to make things difficult for GM.
“We have a well thought out strategic campaign that is going to unfold day in and day out,” he said. “This isn’t going to be a situation where we are going to have an activity on a Tuesday and then sit on our laurels for a week or two. That’s not happening. This is going to be a sustained strategy to get General Motors’ attention.”
Dias said there will be more announcements Wednesday about Unifor’s plans.
“I promise you this, and I assure you this: this will be the worst auto show that General Motors will ever face in their history of the auto shows here in Detroit.”