GM won’t relent on Oshawa truck plant closure: Hargrove

DETROIT -- Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove said today that GM won’t change its mind about closing its Oshawa truck plant.
    
The fiery union boss had vowed to fight to keep the plant open but in a discussion he described as tense and heated General Motors executives declined to change the plan announced Tuesday to close the Oshawa truck facility and three other North American plants.
   
“It wasn’t a great meeting,” Mr. Hargrove said. “General Motors had made up their mind heading in.”
   
He said the CAW will “use every avenue” to fight the decision, possibly pursuing lawsuits or intervention by the Canadian labour board.
   
The morning meeting at the Renaissance Center was to include Mr. Hargrove, GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner and officials from the company and union.
   
GM has said it plans to close the Oshawa truck factory next year as part of restructuring moves announced this week that call for shuttering four plants by 2010.
   
Mr. Hargrove is fighting the closing on the basis GM agreed to keep that factory open until 2011 as part as a national labour deal struck last month between the automaker and Canadian labour union.
   
Members of the CAW, with Mr. Hargrove’s support, have barricaded GM’s Canadian headquarters in Oshawa forcing about 1,000 employees stationed there to work from home since Tuesday.
   
Today the union said the blockade will continue.
   
“At the end they basically told us to go to hell,” said Ron Carlyle, a CAW negotiator who was at the meeting.
   
“It’s a sickening feeling when they can pick or choose things they like and don’t like. They’ve taken the heart and soul out of the collective bargaining process and they’re going to pay.”
   
GM has called the protest “understandable” and taken no action to stop it.
   
GM has said product commitments made in labour deals are dependent on a viable business case for each car and truck.
   
“The market is tough, the market is brutal,” GM spokesman John McDonald said. “The market doesn’t care what you planned to do.”
   
The Oshawa plant --- along with factories closing in Janesville, Wis.; Toluca, Mexico, and Moraine, Ohio -- are victims of a dramatic shift by Americans away from bigger trucks and SUVs. GM’s light truck sales are down a whopping 22 per cent through May.
   
The CAW says the plant employs 2,600 workers

--- Reprinted with permission from Detroit News