General Motors to Lay Off Over 250 Workers at Ontario Plant
September 21 2017 - 7:44PM
Dow Jones News
By Mike Colias
General Motors Co. is laying more than 250 workers from an
engine factory in Canada and trimming production at two U.S.
facilities, fallout from a strike at a vehicle-assembly plant that
is jeopardizing the supply of GM's top-selling sport-utility
vehicle.
The engine facility in St. Catharines, Ontario, near Niagara
Falls, makes transmissions used in the Chevrolet Equinox SUV, built
at GM's CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario. About 2,500
workers at the CAMI plant went on strike Sunday night after union
negotiators failed to reach a new labor deal with GM.
Between 250 and 300 employees at the St. Catharines factory will
be out of work starting Monday, said Greg Brady, president of
Unifor Local 199, which represents workers at the plant. That union
local operates under a separate contract with GM and isn't on
strike.
The strike at CAMI also is having ripple effects south of the
border. There will be a "small number" of layoffs at factories in
Flint, Mich., and Spring Hill, Tenn., which make small gas engines
for the Equinox, a GM spokesman said.
Mr. Brady said formal talks with GM hadn't resumed as of
Thursday evening. A GM spokeswoman in Canada said the company is
encouraging the union to return to the bargaining table.
Union leaders are worried GM could shift more work to Mexico and
are pressing GM to designate the CAMI plant as the auto maker's
primary producer of the Equinox. The company laid off about 600
CAMI workers earlier this year when a different SUV model built
there was moved to Mexico.
"People are nervous," Unifor President Jerry Dias said in an
interview. "The bottom line is we need to stop the bleeding."
The Equinox is GM's No. 2 vehicle by U.S. sales, a key entrant
for the company in a fast-growing market segment. Shoppers
increasingly are ditching sedans in favor of such crossover SUVs
amid lower gas prices and a proliferation of new models.
U.S. sales of the Equinox rose 17% to about 185,000 vehicles
this year through August. GM also sold about 17,000 of the SUVs in
Canada.
The CAMI plant for years had produced the vast majority of
Equinox SUVs. But this year GM introduced a revamped version and
expanded production to plants in San Luis Potosi and Ramos Arizpe
in Mexico. That gives GM more leverage in its negotiations with the
Canadian union, analysts say.
J.D. Power estimates that GM eventually could make up nearly all
of the lost production from the CAMI plant -- about 750 SUVs a day
-- by boosting production at the two Mexican plants.
Write to Mike Colias at Mike.Colias@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 21, 2017 19:29 ET (23:29 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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