GM to pull Camaro out of Oshawa, 900 jobs to go

By 2016, General Motors could close its Oshawa plant, a dejected City of Kawartha Lakes resident and General Motors worker said Wednesday after the company announced it will move Camaro production from the Oshawa plant to Michigan.

Keith Osborne expects the workforce of GM in Oshawa to plunge to about 1,800 employees on two shifts by late 2015 from the current level of about 4,500 workers on five shifts, which could threaten the viability of maintaining GM production in Oshawa.

?It?s disgusting, to say the least,? said Osborne, a national representative for Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 who has worked at the GM plant in Oshawa for 27 years.

GM, in a release issued Wednesday, cited lower capital investment and improved production efficiencies as key factors in its decision to relocate Camaro production to a plant in Lansing, Mich.

With the shift, GM will produce three rear-wheel-drive vehicles at the plant in Michigan. Currently, the Camaro is the only rear-wheel-drive vehicle produced in Oshawa.

GM has stated that it will continue to meet production targets that it agreed to with the Canadian and Ontario governments as part of the 2009 restructuring.

When CAW negotiated its recent agreement that was approved in September, it didn?t go after incentives or buyouts ? it went after the future, it went after the production of the next generation of the Camaro, Osborne said.

?We were pretty confident that we had it,? he said. ?Since the bargaining they?ve done everything in their power to try to renege on everything they said they?d do.?

Losing the Camaro production will eliminate about 900 jobs at the Oshawa plant, Osborne said.

With other production lines slated to close at the facility, Osborne expects the workforce at GM?s Oshawa plant to drop to about 1,800 employees and two production shifts when the Camaro production relocates in late 2015.

The federal government?s agreement with General Motors expires in 2016, shortly after GM in Oshawa loses the Camaro production, Osborne added.

?In 2016, they can close Oshawa,? he said.

It?s not a coincidence that General Motors announced the relocation of the Camaro production from Oshawa to Michigan soon after that state passed the ?Right to Work? legislation that hurts unions, Osborne said.

?This is all politics,? he said. ?I think they?ll move it? It?s union busting and look out (Progressive Conservative leader Tim) Hudak, because this falls right into Hudak?s plan too. It?s a right wing agenda.?

Osborne challenged GM to show how it?s more efficient to build the Camaro in Michigan when the Oshawa plant is already tooled to build the car.

brendan.wedley@sunmedia.ca

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Source: http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2012/12/19/gm-to-pull-camaro-out-of-oshawa-900-jobs-to-go

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