OSHAWA -- The refusal by General Motors to keep the truck plant open beyond 2009 means the union’s resistance is going to “intensify” said Keith Osborne, truck plant chairman CAW Local 222.
GM announced Tuesday the Oshawa truck plant will close sometime next year resulting in the loss of 2,600 jobs.
Union officials were in Detroit Friday morning for a meeting with General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner. Mr. Osborne said he was “disappointed” with the outcome of the meeting.
He said he would not comment now as to what the next step for the union would be.
“Just to intensify our resistance to the company’s decisions,” he said. “All options are open.”
Union representatives are on their way back form Detroit and will report back to a blockade of members outside General Motors headquarters, around 1 or 2 p.m. said Mr. Osborne.
“I am going to tell my members the blockade stands and we are going to get creative and we are going to do what we have to do.
“All I can tell you is that General Motors has fractured the relationship between the CAW and their company,” said Mr. Osborne. Reaction at the protest site was restrained Friday morning with union members saying they prefer to hear the news from Local 222 officials.
“We don’t want to listen to rumours, we want to hear it from them,” said truck plant employee Don Walton, adding he “wouldn’t be surprised” to hear GM had refused to reconsider its decision.
Jim Freeman, another truck plant employee and president of the Durham Region Labour Council, said the bad news was slowly filtering through the blockade site but hadn’t see a big change in the crowd’s mood.
“It might just make everyone more determined,” he said.
Mr. Freeman said he was angry and depressed when he heard the outcome of the meeting. He isn’t sure what the union’s next step will be -- but is sure they won’t back down.
“We’ll be out here as long as it takes, weeks, months, whatever. We’ll be here one day longer than GM is,” he said. “If you don’t have a job anyway, what else are you going to do?”
Local 222 members started gathering near GM headquarters at 4 a.m. Wednesday, creating a barricade across the street to prevent GM workers from reaching their office. Only employees of the nearby Minacs office were allowed through. The blockade has since moved closer to the building and is still there as of Friday morning.
Hundreds of union members are expected to congregate at the site this afternoon to hear Local 222 President Chris Buckley and other union officials speak about the meeting in Detroit and announce what happens next.
Stayed tuned to www.newsdurhamregion.com for updates.
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