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GM Closures -- What's Next?
Feeley, Dianne
http://solidarity-us.org/atc/198/gm-closures/Date Written: 2019-01-01 Publisher: Against the Current Year Published: 2019 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX23467 Plant closures by GM in the US, Canada and internationally threaten workers and communities. Can unions fight to stop this destructive practice? Abstract: -- Excerpt: After workers in the Oshawa, Ontario plant received the news, they walked out, protesting the decision in the city's streets. They, like the workers in U.S. plants, thought the concessions they’d made in their current contract had won them secure employment for its duration. U.S. autoworkers, whose contract will end September 2019, were in the process of submitting resolutions for their upcoming Bargaining Council. The mood was to end the tiered division of workers imposed with the GM/Chrysler bailout, along with the growth of permanent "temporaries" and outsourcing work areas such as kitting and material handling. GM’s announcement, threatening 14,000 blue-collar and white-collar jobs, can be seen as the first, intimidating move before the round of contract negotiations. With auto industry's high multiplier effect, this would mean at least a 50,000 job loss. Given the U.S. and Canadian governments' bailout of GM a decade ago at a $15 billion loss to taxpayers, that's a devastating and arrogant decision. Subject Headings |