OSHAWA, Ont. – General Motors is moving production of the next version of its Camaro sports car from its Oshawa operation in Ontario to a plant in Michigan, a move the union says will cost 1,000 jobs at the massive factory east of Toronto.
The Canadian Auto Workers estimated the move, which could also affect parts companies, could cost as many as 9,000 jobs in the region after all the spinoff affects are included.
The decision, which will affect workers in late 2015 or early 2016, caught union president Ken Lewenza completely by surprise and left him feeling angry and betrayed.
“We are outraged by this decision,” he said. “This is about thousands of jobs in our community.”
Lewenza called on the company to replace the roughly 100,000 vehicles a year worth of production in an effort to protect the jobs at the plant once the Camaro moves.
“We’re going to save these jobs come hell or high water,” Lewenza said.
In a statement, General Motors Canada said Wednesday that “lower capital investment and improved production efficiencies were key factors” in the move.
The current version of the Camaro has been produced since 2010 at GM’s Oshawa flex plant, which employs some 2,200 people and also produces the Buick Regal and Cadillac XTS.
The CAW’s most recent contract with GM, which was ratified in September, guaranteed production of the Camaro in Oshawa only until the end of the current generation.
GM said the Camaro is the only rear-wheel drive vehicle assembled at Oshawa.
Production of the next generation of Camaro will be consolidated with the production of Cadillac CTS and ATS, also rear-wheel drive vehicles, in Michigan in a bid to improve efficiency, the company said.
The CAW said the decision will cut production in Oshawa by as much as one third.
The move follows a decision by GM to invest $185 million in connection to the addition of the Cadillac XTS at the plant and the launch of a new version of the Chevrolet Impala next year.
The U.S. automaker also said it will add a third shift at the flex plant in connection with the new Impala.
The consolidated line in Oshawa will continue to produce the current generation Chevrolet Impala and Equinox until June 2014.
Lewenza, who said he spoke with the Prime Minister’s Office and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty about the GM decision, said the government needs an industrial strategy like other countries.
“Without it, then these kind of crisis will be more regular than not regular. I can’t speak for the federal government, but I do know that Premier McGuinty understands the importance of the auto industry,” he said.
“Talking to both levels of government today, at least on the phone call they were equally as frustrated as I am. So all they have to do now is use the tools of government to stop this nonsense.”
GM said it will continue to meet production targets agreed to with the federal and Ontario governments in 2009.
Ontario Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid said the province expected a greater level of commitment by the automaker.
“As such, we expect GM to move quickly to bring new product mandates to the facility and also stand by its commitment to add a third shift on the Oshawa Flex Line, creating 900 jobs, as announced in October,” Duguid said in a statement.
“We will carefully review GM’s obligations and ensure they are accountable for those commitments.”
NDP Finance critic Peggy Nash said the federal government needs to do more.
“We need the government of Canada to put some pressure on General Motors to replace the lost production in Oshawa,” Nash said.
“We need to make sure we’re maintaining those jobs in Oshawa, that we’re using our equity stake in GM to give us a voice in the future of production in Oshawa.”
The Camaro, along with the Firebird muscle car, were once produced at a GM plant in Quebec until it was shut down in 2002.
Ottawa and Ontario contributed $13.7 billion to help bail out North American automakers GM and Chrysler more than three years ago and combined own about nine per cent of GM’s common shares.
In its most recent deal with GM, the CAW agreed to a plan that would see new employees take longer to reach the top of the pay scale as well as receive a hybrid pension plan.
The deal will also GM commit to creating, maintaining or extending 1,750 jobs.
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Wake up all you GM drivers, I was one also. Till the bail out I drove a GM. Then it hit me, Why should the poor give money to the rich? Now I’ll never drive a GM again! GM don’t care about the average guy, they only care about the bottom line.
The Canadian auto market, as well as every other market is pretty small compared to the U.S. They sell more cars in the state of California than in all of Canada. For us to compete for manufacturing we as a country must remain appealing to the businesses themselves. You can bring out any laws you want, but in the big picture, we are a small customer of products made in the U.S. We might not like to hear it, but that is the way it is. They don’t need us to buy their products, but we need them to make them, and to invest here for our own sake.
Where is the Taxpayers’ $13.7 billions that Ottawa and Ontario contributed to help bail out North American automakers GM and Chrysler more than three years ago?
The people have been working hard and paying the taxes and the inefficient government easily waste our money and the wealth. The main problem is the world capitalists and mafias control over the Canadian government. Very nice.
Are these 1000 part of the 600,000 jobs that the HST was going to generate….errr sorry, we’re losing 1000 jobs. Thanks dalton.
stop whining CAW, GM mentioned this possibility when you signed your contracts. Lewenaza only cares about his pension, i hate his fake ideals. GM employees don’t contribute to our local economy anyway, they’re a bunch of DIY’s, or run side businesses….
GM shifting production, who cares. All their products are garbage!!
I GUESS AFTER 40 YEARS OF BUYING GM. I WILL BE BUYING SOMETHING ELSE. MICHIGAN TODAY INDIA OR CHINA SOON.
Same as with Caterpiller– the yanks are looking after yanks, nevr mind how much of our taxpayer money they took!
Canada has mostly been a branch plant or warehouse economy, which comes with these risks. The auto industry follows handouts, which follow politicians. Obama will win votes in Michigan, which was devasted by the Great Recession. Oshawa is doing OK with or without the Camaro, so it actually makes sense from GM’s point of view. Lower productivity in Canada due to high taxation and socialist mindset also works against us. Canada’s tax system, public sector unions and Government reminds of me Germany in the early 1990s before it was reformed. Businesses were leaving Germnany in droves. Workers would rather take time off to work in their garden than to work overtime. Students leaving Universities would strive for public sector jobs rather than entering other industries.
Union has lost its positive effects used to have in the past. In this modern age, CAW looks like a cancer, all it does is wakening the strength our society, damaging our economy and contaminating people’s believing.
Did you miss the tiny little detail that the UAW exists south of the border or did you choose to ignore it? Unions aren’t the problem. They’ve bent over backwards to help the car companies stay afloat. The problem is that when the companies are viable again, they don’t reciprocate, which angers the unions and the workers.
What did Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper say about all those new jobs in Canada? What a joke eh? Where are they now as several hundred more Canadians will be out of work, again?
The federal government has done a lot to give bussinesses incentives to come to Canada as well as to stay in Canada, but the provincial government has increased the taxes and burdens on companies everytime the federal government tried to lessen them. The Ontario government is only thinking about the dollar that it can make today, not the many dollars that it can make down the road, by having people employed and paying taxes rather than on unemployment. Dalton and his socialist ways have made this province one to avoid by big business. If you read up on it, you can clearly see it happen time and time again.
What a pantload! Ontario has bent backwards with tax incentives and the likes to keep businesses in Ontario but we simply cannot compete with places that have poverty level wages and no worker protection. The conservatives offer nothing but more tax cuts for businesses (which by all appearances don’t work) and more cuts to social programs. I’m sick and tired of hearing that the “socialist” agenda is killing this economy. The last time I checked we didn’t have a socialist government anywhere in this country but I guess if you’re right wing enough everything else looks “left”.
Sigh…….Ontario needs to do what Michigan is doing. All of a sudden Michigan is regaining workers and employers, left, right, and centre. Big Daddy Dalton’s HST does not seem to be bringing ANY of the benefits it was supposed to. Matter of fact it seems it is driving employers and manufacturers away.
These moves seem to be all political. There was such a hoopula when the camaro was announced to be built here with the political parties and the union leaders all basking in the credit for it. Now with the new Michigan “Right to work” law just passed, it will show that the law is bringing in work to Michigan. In the meanwhile, the workers get screwed.
How very sad – the ultimate payback for the CAW splitting with the UAW!!!!!!!
and merging with the CEP instead.