CANADIAN LABOUR:

BUZZ STRIKES OUT:

Today's meeting of CAW officials with executives of the General Motors corporation in Detroit came out snake-eyes for Canadian auto workers. The meeting listed 90 minutes, and was "tense" according to Hargrove. Management, however, refused to back down one inch, and the CAW's Hargrove said that he would consider his options- a strike, arbitration or labour board complaint. Significantly absent was the possibility of the sort of plant occupations that have won Canadian workers workers victories in the past few years. The president of the union local involved, however, has said that the blockade of the GM headquarters in Oshawa will continue in light of the decision. Here's the story of the meeting as recently published in the Montreal Gazette (from the Windsor Star).

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Union to continue fight to save Oshawa plant
DETROIT - Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove said Friday he would continue fighting to save union jobs after General Motors Corp. refused to reverse a decision to close its Oshawa, Ont., truck plant in September 2009.

Emerging from a 90-minute meeting GM chief executive Rick Wagoner- which he described as "tense" - Hargrove said he was "incredibly disappointed" that GM won't honour a bargaining commitment made less than three weeks ago.

"We made a helluva case but they had their minds made up before the meeting and they weren't interested in changing," he said.

CAW president Buzz Hargrove: 'We made a helluva case but they had their minds made up before the meeting.'


GM spokesman Stew Low said the closure decision was prompted by a "fundamental shift away from large trucks and SUVs to cars which we believe is not cyclical and can't be reversed.

"There just isn't the market anymore and we see no reason to keep building vehicles that consumers don't want."

Ron Carlyle, a member of CAW Local 222 which represents workers at the plant, said: "It's a sickening feeling to realize that the company has ripped the heart and soul out of the collective bargaining process."

Carlyle also said a blockade by union members of GM's Canadian headquarters in Oshawa would continue.

Local 222 president Chris Buckley, speaking later to union members outside the GM building, said the vigil will go on until the company agrees to keep the truck plant open.

"They want their building back. They're not getting their building back," he said.

Before Friday's meeting, Hargrove said that nothing short of a reversal by General Motors of its decision to close the Oshawa truck plant would satisfy his members.

GM announced Tuesday that the plant would close in the third quarter of 2009 because of slumping truck sales, throwing 2,600 workers out of their jobs. Hargrove vowed the CAW would fight the closure, which he called a "betrayal" of the collective bargaining process.

During recently completed bargaining, Hargrove said, GM committed to keeping the plant open until the new labour agreement expired in 2011, to continue building hybrid versions of two pickup trucks in Oshawa and to making a new investment in 2011 that would launch the next generation of half-ton trucks.

While the agreement contained a clause addressing market conditions, Hargrove said that GM sold the same number of trucks in May that it sold in April, and added there had been no change in the market in two weeks.

"Someone (at GM) had to have known what was going on. You don't make a decision to close four plants in two weeks," he said.

On Wednesday, GM workers blocked access to GM's Canadian headquarters in Oshawa.

Following discussions between the company and the CAW, GM agreed to Friday's meeting.
Last month, GM announced it would close its Windsor transmission plant, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs.

The company and union recently reached a closure agreement for transmission plant workers calling for, among other things, retirement payouts of between $75,000 and $100,000.

CANADIAN LABOUR:

CAW BLOCKADE OF GM HEADQUARTERS ENTERS THIRD DAY:

As Molly writes this this morning the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) blockade of the General Motors head office in Oshawa Ontario has entered its third day. Union leader, Buzz Hargrove, has entered into talks in Detroit with the executives of GM about the situation. Buzz, however, may be past his best-before date as he limps through his last year as head of the CAW. His recent performances as leader have been less than stellar as he seems more interested in cozying up to management rather than defending the rights of his membership. A pattern of poor contracts and blaming the government and the economy rather than management has been pretty consistent for him in the last few years. While he was "cautiously optimistic" in a statement to the press before entering into the talks this morning we will see what the day will bring. For a rank and file view of the United Auto Workers, the American equivalent of the CAW, see Future of the Union and Soldiers of Solidarity. While these organizations are based in the USA they often carry news about the Canadian situation.

Here is a report from the Oshawa area ie the Durham Region News about the situation as of yesterday.

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GM head office blockade continues

Read the 22 page online special report: The Truck Stops Here

OSHAWA -- The blockade continues on Colonel Sam Drive in front of the GM head office in Oshawa.

About 50 GM workers have held their position since Wednesday morning to protest plans by the company to shut down the truck plant in Oshawa and eliminate up to 2,600 jobs.

The Canadian Auto Workers union says it will not back down until the company meets face-to-face with the union to explain the decision.

A meeting has been scheduled for 8 a.m. Friday in Detroit. CAW president Buzz Hargrove and Local 222 president Chris Buckley will be among the union leaders to meet with General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner.

Federal Liberal finance critic John McCallum, MP (Markham-Unionville), was expected to show his support for the workers at a news conference scheduled for 10 a.m. at the protest line.

The Liberals have criticized Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty for comments that they say discouraged companies from investing in Ontario.

The protest has not affected production on the assembly line, and workers are being told by the union to report for their regular shifts.

GM, the country's biggest automaker, stunned the union and thousands of workers on Tuesday by announcing plans to close the 43-year-old truck plant in the second half of 2009.

New Democratic Party leader Howard Hampton, who also wore a red shirt, joined the workers yesterday.

At the demonstration, GM worker Sherry Fallis said she won't know what to do if the truck plant closes. She lost her job at a plant that supplied GM four years ago, leaving her fearful about supporting her four-year-old son.

Describing her final days at ACSYS Technologies, she told the Toronto Star, "We were hanging onto hope."

Ms. Fallis and about 1,200 other employees transferred to GM, and she thought she had a permanent position.

"It's happening all over again. I don't know what we're going to do," she said.

This time around, Fallis, 32, has a second young son to support. And her husband works at another nearby feeder plant that builds seats for GM's trucks. He'll probably be losing his job too, she said.

Other workers at the demonstration face similar difficulties.

"It's a little scary, what's going on right now," said Tim Lepine, 27. Having little seniority after just six years at GM, Mr. Lepine knows he would be one of the first in line to lose his job in 2009. In the meantime, he said, he will try to save whatever money he can.

"It's pretty bleak, what's going to happen in the future," said GM car-plant employee Jesse Forbes, chair of the union's youth committee.

It represents members under 31, and most will probably be out of work if the plant closes, he said.

"They've just gotten married and had kids and got their house, and they realize how hard it's going to be if their jobs disappear."