https://twitter.com/DavidRayAmos/with_replies



David Raymond Amos‏ @DavidRayAmos
Replying to @DavidRayAmos@Kathryn98967631 and  49 othersPiero Scaramuzzi posted "This is a tough break for the workers"

I replied

Methinks the fancy Yankee lawyer Craig Glidden should call me back and answer my email as well N'esy Pas?


 #cdnpoli#GM#Trump#TrudeauMustGo


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/general-motors-closure-oshawa-assembly-plant-1.4920438

'They are not closing our damn plant': Union vows fight as GM plans Oshawa closing

David Raymond Amos‏ @DavidRayAmos


https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/gm-oshawa-trudeau-ford-1.4921331

For Trudeau and Doug Ford, General Motors' timing could hardly be worse

bill chagwich

David Amos

'They are not closing our damn plant': Union vows fight as GM plans Oshawa closing

Some 2,500 jobs on the line as automaker launches massive restructuring effort

Members of Unifor, the union representing workers at the General Motors assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., block the entrance and set up a picket line Monday ahead of the company's plant shutdown announcement. Workers call the plan a 'slap in the face.' (Eduardo Lima/Canadian Press)



The union representing thousands of autoworkers is vowing to fight back against the General Motors plan to close an Oshawa, Ont., plant in 2019 as part of a global restructuring.

It's not clear how many of the 2,500 employees at the Oshawa assembly facility will lose their jobs under the sweeping strategy, which GM says aims to lower carbon emissions and prepare for a future of electric and autonomous vehicles.

Workers at the plant walked off the job Monday morning in protest.



Jerry Dias, national president of Unifor, blasted GM's move, which he says violates its agreement with workers, and praised those who work at the plant, which is about 60 kilometres east of Toronto.

"You're the No. 1 plant that [GM's] got," he told the crowd.

"They are not closing our damn plant without one hell of a fight."

Dias said the union is sick of GM outsourcing Canadian work to Mexico, and will spend the next year fighting the planned closure, and will do whatever it takes to keep the jobs in Oshawa. He suggested one thing the Canadian government could do is implement tariffs on Mexican-made vehicles.

"Sisters and brothers, buckle up," he said.

When GM confirmed the closure Monday, it said the company is exploring options to retool the facility. This means they could close or they could get different vehicles to build.

Mary Barra, GM's chief executive officer, said from Detroit that the action to transform its product line and manufacturing process will save the company an estimated $6 billion US by the end of 2020.

"This industry is changing very rapidly when you look at all of the transformative technology — be it propulsion, autonomous driving, connectivity sharing — and we want to make sure we're well positioned," she said.

The plan will put GM in a "more agile, resilient and profitable" position for long-term success, she said.

The reduction includes 8,100 white-collar workers, Barra said, some of whom will take buyouts, while others will be laid off amid a 15 per cent cut of staff.

Nothing Ontario can do, premier says

Unifor said Monday it was told no vehicles are set to be assembled at the facility past December 2019.
The union is set to hold talks with GM on Monday afternoon.

Workers, meanwhile, are being urged to go back to the assembly line tomorrow.

Earlier, Premier Doug Ford called the news "absolutely devastating" during a fiery question period at Queen's Park.

Ford spoke to senior officials of GM Canada on Sunday and says he was told a plan to eliminate production was already underway.
During the conversation, Ford said he asked if there was anything the province could do to prevent the shutdown. He claims the automaker told him, "that ship has already left the dock" and the facility will be closed regardless of federal or provincial government intervention.

"They told me straight up there's nothing we can do," he said.

State of auto industry

The Detroit-based automaker had been quiet on the expected move since news broke Sunday evening.

But Barra revealed during a morning news conference in Detroit that GM would be terminating production at the Oshawa assembly plant, along with four other complexes in the U.S. and at more facilities outside North America that will be announced at a later date.

The U.S. assembly plants affected are in Detroit and Warren, Ohio, as well as transmission factories in Baltimore and Warren, Mich.

"This industry is changing very rapidly and we want to make sure we're well positioned," Barra told reporters, noting the automaker will be focusing on its future through investment in autonomous and electric vehicles.

GM has yet to set a timetable for the production halt at the Oshawa plant, but confirmed it will take place sometime in 2019. Further, the vehicles produced there won't be sold in the U.S. after next year.

'Slap in the face'

Workers inside the plant stopped production shortly before 9 a.m. ET and set up a picket line outside an entrance gate. They called GM's plan a "slap in the face."

Zachary Way, a new hire at the plant, was among those who walked off the production line in protest and was waiting to hear more from the union.

Way told CBC News that the company has told him "basically nothing" at this point, although he's already fearing the worst. If he is laid off, "it'll be bad," he said.

Way's father and brother also work at the Oshawa plant, which he likened to the heart of the city. If it shuts down, Way said, he's not sure how Oshawa will recover. He likened an empty plant to an "open wound."

Watch workers react to GM's plans to close the Oshawa facility in 2019 as part of a global restructuring plan:

Oshawa assembly plant

The Oshawa plant, where GM Canada has its headquarters, produces the Chevrolet Impala and the Cadillac XTS cars, the majority of which are shipped south of the border. It also does the final assembly of the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks.

The complex is one of three GM manufacturing facilities in Ontario, along with St. Catharines and Ingersoll.

The plant was headed for closure in June this year amid a slump in sales of passenger cars in North America, and specifically the U.S., for the two cars built in Oshawa.

In late 2017, GM Canada reported a 17.2 per cent year-over-year drop in vehicle sales, while Canadian year-to-year sales were up 13.6 per cent thanks to strong numbers earlier that year.
Around the same time, the auto manufacturer restarted a truck assembly line and scaled back car production to address shifting American buyer preferences.

Then, GM ramped up its cost-cutting efforts last month by offering buyouts to thousands of white-collar workers with 12 or more years of service in both Canada and the U.S. The company has said it needs to be smaller to prepare for possible tougher times.

'It's going to affect the province'

The assembly plant has formed the backbone of Oshawa's economy for more than 100 years. GM bought the plant in 1953 from McLaughlin Buicks, making it one of the biggest in the world.

Initially, Oshawa Mayor John Henry had hoped news of the closure was "just a rumour," but several hours after it made national headlines, he predicted "there's more to this than what we know."
Henry, who worked at the facility as a teen, claims a sombre mood is now blanketing the city because the economic ripple effect will send shockwaves beyond its workers and their families.

"This isn't just about building cars," he told CBC News on Monday, noting he had not yet spoken to anyone from GM.

"It's going to affect the province, it's going to affect the region."



Dozens of auto-parts businesses, as well as the companies that supply them, will also be affected. A wide array of local businesses, such as restaurants and retailers in Oshawa, could also feel the effects of the shutdown.

GM workers have been good for Oshawa, Henry noted, raising millions of dollars for charity like the local United Way, even during hard economic times.

"It's going to change the spending habits in this community," he said, adding the effects will be felt instantly especially during the holiday season.

"We thought with the recent investments that General Motors had made, that this plant was going to continue to produce vehicles for a long period of time."

'Oshawa built GM'

Chris Buckley, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, said the move is "absolutely shameful" and that GM should treat its workers better.

"General Motors should be disgusted on how they're rewarding these members," Buckley told CBC News.

For every job at the assembly plant, he explains, an additional nine jobs are created in the community.
"This is going to be absolutely devastating," he said of the closure.

Words cannot fully describe the anxiety that my community is feeling at this moment.- MPP  Jennifer French

Oshawa NDP MPP Jennifer French also decried the plan, calling it a "callous decision that must be fought."

"GM did not build Oshawa. Oshawa built GM," French said in a statement on Sunday.

"Words cannot fully describe the anxiety that my community is feeling at this moment."

---

Here's a look at the impact of the GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont.:

For Trudeau and Doug Ford, General Motors' timing could hardly be worse

Billions of dollars in GM subsidies didn't protect politicians from being caught flat-footed by the closure

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons. The timing of the GM plant closure, coming immediately after an optimistic fall economic update, poses a profound challenge to a government making a case for re-election. (Canadian Press)


General Motors' decision to stop assembling vehicles at its Oshawa plant a year from now was made, for all intents and purposes, by stealth.

It caught politicians at all levels of government and of all political stripes completely off guard, despite their frequent conversations with the carmaker over the past year about the plant's future.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford and federal Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains said they only learned of the decision late Sunday. Both indicated they asked GM what could be done to save the plant, and the 2,600 jobs there, only to be told the decision was final.


Are we disappointed? Yeah, we're disappointed in GM," Ford told reporters, pointing out that the company benefited from billions of dollars in life-support from both levels of government during the economic downturn of a decade ago.

"We've been engaging with them for months about the future prospects of the Oshawa plant," Bains said in his own news conference Monday. "They had made no specific acknowledgement about the future of this plant."

While the impact of the job losses will be significant in Oshawa and the surrounding regions east of Toronto, their national effect looks less severe.

The plant accounts for 6 per cent of total vehicle production in Canada, said Scotiabank economist Juan Manuel Herrera, who publishes the bank's monthly Global Auto Report. Production in Oshawa was set to decline next year by 40 per cent from current levels because the vehicle models made there aren't big sellers.

Undermining a message of optimism

"This is not a Canadian-specific issue," said Herrera. "It's a GM-specific issue."

The Oshawa plant is one of six facilities GM is closing next year. Four are in the U.S. and one is in South Korea.

"We recognize the need to stay in front of changing market conditions and customer preferences to position our company for the long term," GM chair Mary Barra said in a statement.

Politically, there's never a good time for a company to announce plant closures. But this one, by an iconic car maker, comes at an especially awkward time for the federal government.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau released his fall economic update less than a week ago. It promises to provide more than $14 billion in tax write-offs to companies investing in new machinery and technology in Canada, and forecasts continued strong economic growth and job creation.

That outlook hasn't been sitting well with taxpayers in Alberta, where continued low oil prices have led to layoffs and calls for help from Ottawa.
The price gap between a barrel of West Texas Intermediate and Western Canadian Select is more than $40 right now because of Canada's over-reliance on selling to the U.S. market.

"Ottawa is living in a different economic world," Alberta's NDP finance minister, Joe Ceci, said when he learned there would be no help for the energy sector from Morneau's economic update.

The sudden (and apparently irreversible) closure of one of GM's oldest car plants represents a new challenge for Prime Minister Trudeau after a year of uncertainty over the future of North American trade, continuing tariffs on steel and aluminum and new North American content rules for autos.

Jerry Dias is president of Unifor, the union that represents Canadian auto workers. His support during the prolonged NAFTA talks gave important political cover to the Trudeau team as it pursued high-risk trade negotiations with the Trump administration. Now he's telling plant workers the union intends to fight the closure; he'll be in Ottawa on Tuesday and said expects a meeting with Trudeau then.

"We're going to say to the government that we are going to have to use every trick, every tool," Dias said, adding GM already has transferred the production of nearly a million vehicles to Mexico.

"We're going to have to use all the power of government to make sure General Motors understands that they are not betraying Canada again."

Charlotte Yates, principal investigator at the Automotive Policy Research Centre in Guelph, told CBC News that the Oshawa plant had been in a vulnerable position for years because of its location outside the Detroit-Windsor hub.

Still, she said, the impact in that region can't be ignored.

From 'open for business' to hoping for EI

"There are auto parts makers who supply that plant. There are people who provide services to that plant," she said. "(It) is the centre of a manufacturing ecosystem on which thousands of people depend for their livelihood."

At both the federal and provincial levels, the political stakes are daunting. Ford came to power earlier this year announcing Ontario is "open for business." On Monday, he was talking about assisting laid-off workers and working with the federal Liberals to ensure those who lose their jobs get the maximum benefits under Employment Insurance.

The federal Liberals head to the polls in less than a year. Ridings in the Greater Toronto area are highly competitive. Losing thousands of jobs in the auto sector, on top of the job losses in Alberta and Saskatchewan linked to low oil prices, doesn't make for the kind of economic record that helps keep a party in power.

Federal Conservatives didn't pass up the opportunity to accuse Trudeau of giving up on the first day.

"We believe there's a future in Canada for manufacturing if we all work together and fight for it," said Conservative Erin O'Toole, who represents the riding of Durham, just outside Oshawa.

New Democrats, meanwhile, were swift to point to the vast amount of government money GM has consumed over the years.

Watch Opposition MPs pitch their ideas for saving GM in Oshawa



"We can't afford billions of dollars in tax giveaways to large companies when those same companies are pulling up stakes and leaving people out of work," said MP Guy Caron.

The Trudeau government may have been caught off-guard by GM's announcement on Oshawa. But they're getting plenty of warning now that it would be a mistake, politically, to accept it without a fight.


Was the writing on the wall for GM? Watch Power & Politics' explainer