General Motors Corp.'s decision to shutter a transmission plant in Windsor will push the tally of auto sector layoffs in Ontario's battered motor city beyond 4,000 in the past two years.
The GM move came in the midst of negotiations with the Canadian Auto Workers, whose president Buzz Hargrove is battling to hang on to the shrinking number of unionized auto industry jobs in Canada while the city where he began his career is edging closer to becoming an automotive ghost town.
The shutdown of GM's transmission plant in 2010 will wipe out another 1,400 jobs in a city with Canada's fourth-highest unemployment rate. GM will no longer employ anyone directly in Windsor, where it has been assembling transmissions since 1963.
The other job cuts suffered by the city include the closing of a casting plant and joint venture aluminum factory by Ford Motor Co., as well as the shutdown of a Lear Corp. seat-making plant and more than 1,000 job cuts at Chrysler Canada Inc.
"The entire city's been affected by it," Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis said yesterday.
"All of us have family members or friends that have either worked or work in those plants and today's announcement is just devastating news. It's what we've been dealing with for the past three years with the Big Three's struggles," he added.
Windsor is not the only city reeling from GM's dwindling work force. Two weeks ago, the company said it will eliminate one shift at a plant in Oshawa, Ont., that assembles pickup trucks, wiping out 900 jobs.
The one-two punch is creating a political headache for Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty as he presides over Canada's ailing manufacturing heartland. He says there is little he can do to stop the bleeding at branch plants of the Detroit auto giants.
"That's the kind of world that we live in today," a grim-looking Mr. McGuinty told reporters yesterday. "A lot of these shots are being called from elsewhere."
Not so long ago, he took credit for transforming the province into the No. 1 car producer in North America by using a $500-million fund to attract $7-billion in investments.
But that strategy came under attack yesterday by opposition members. New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton said GM slashed jobs after receiving $250-million from the province. "By any measure, that's not a successful strategy," he said.
Progressive Conservative MPP Bob Runciman described the GM announcement as "another stick in the stomach" for a manufacturing sector that has shed more than 200,000 jobs under Mr. McGuinty's watch.
Mr. McGuinty acknowledged that the optics of the funding followed by job cuts do not look good. But he defended the move, saying no auto company would have invested here if it had to provide iron-clad guarantees that no jobs would be lost.
"GM has a massive footprint in the province. In an ideal world, we could have said, 'We're prepared to partner with you on condition that you don't reduce any part of that footprint,' " he said. "But no auto manufacturer was prepared to do that."
In return for $435-million in federal and provincial funding in 2005, GM committed to maintain an average of 16,000 employees in Ontario over the following nine years.
The company now has 14,850 employees, but company spokesman Stew Low said it will meet its commitment.
The ripples from the impact of the auto sector job cuts have spilled into other sectors of the economy.
Windsor was the only major centre in Canada where new home prices fell in March, 2008, compared with the same month last year, continuing a downward trend that started 18 months ago, according to Statistics Canada's new-housing price index, which was released yesterday.
Last week, Mr. Hargrove said the union would go on strike against GM if the auto maker did not promise new products for Windsor, the truck and car plant in Oshawa, and engine and parts operations in St. Catharines, Ont.
After a weekend of negotiating, his tune had changed dramatically yesterday.
"You strike after something you think is achievable," he told a news conference. "If we thought there was a product out there that we could strike and fight and win, then you can bet your boots we would be striking over it."
Instead, the CAW is trying to negotiate buyout and retirement packages for its members at the Windsor plant. As of noon yesterday, the offer from GM was unsatisfactory, so Mr. Hargrove said the union may abandon negotiations if there's no deal by the union-imposed deadline of 6 p.m. tomorrow and go on strike in September.
GENERAL MOTORS (GM)
Close: $20.76 (U.S.), down 47¢
Windsor job losses
530
Ford Windsor Casting Plant, 2006
200
Lear Corp. seat-making plant, 2008
600
Essex Aluminum (joint venture between Ford and Alfa SAB de CV of Mexico), 2009
1,400 GM transmission plant, 2010
© The Globe and Mail
