Angry Canadian workers lay siege to GM

For 12 days, members of the Canadian Auto Workers union blockaded the corporate offices of General Motors in Oshawa, Ontario, protesting GM’s plans to close a truck plant there. Finally, on the morning of June 16, CAW members complied with a judge’s order to end their blockade, but they continued the fight with a vehicle parade, circling the plant GM intends to close next year.

On June 3, GM had announced the planned closing of four truck and sport utility vehicle plants. Besides Oshawa, the plants are in Moraine, Ohio; Janesville, Wis.; and Toluca, Mexico. None of these closings had been agreed to in contracts signed last fall with the United Auto Workers in the U.S. and just last month with the Canadian Auto Workers.

“We just ratified a new three-year collective agreement on May 16. They committed to products in this plant ... and as of today they’ve pulled that product out from underneath us. It’s nothing short of betrayal,” charged CAW Local 222 President Chris Buckley, who represents the workers at the Oshawa plant.

By morning the next day, hundreds of CAW members had formed a blockade of the corporate offices. In the following days thousands of workers joined Local 222 in protesting GM’s suddenly announced plans to terminate their 2,600 jobs. No one went in and out of the 900-worker office complex with the lone exception of payroll employees—the workers had to be paid.

“This decision is unfair, it’s unjust, it’s unwarranted, it’s illegal, it violates our collective agreement,” CAW President Buzz Hargrove told the news media, “and we’re going to do everything in our power—and we have power. We are not going to allow this to happen.”

On June 8 the protest was visited by Ken Georgetti, president of the Canadian Labor Congress, who pledged the support of the CLC’s 3.2 million members. Solidarity also came from International Metalworkers Federation General Secretary Marcello Malentacchi, on behalf of 120 million metalworkers worldwide.

At a rally later that day, Buckley of Local 222 defiantly proclaimed, “I can guarantee, and I said this to General Motors about an hour ago on the highway, they want their building back and they’re not getting their building back.”

Paul Moist, national president of the 570,000-member Canadian Union of Public Employees, speaking at the CAW’s Collective Bargaining and Political Action Convention in Toronto June 10, promised to stand behind the CAW. The convention heard speaker after speaker vow to back the struggle at GM, knowing that their jobs too were in jeopardy.

Workers on the blockade, in turn, carried signs that read: “You’re next.” As one protester told a television reporter, “The CEO of Ford (was) calling our leader here, Buzz Hargrove, saying, ‘If you’re going to let GM breach their contract, we’re going to do the same thing.’”

On one day of the 12-day siege, hundreds of workers also circled the entire GM complex, blocking delivery of parts for several hours.

Thousands turned out for a march in Oshawa June 12. Meanwhile, GM and the CAW lawyers were battling in court over GM’s demand for an injunction ending the blockade. GM also sought $1.5 million in damages from the CAW.

On June 13 Ontario Superior Court Judge David Salmers ordered the union to end its siege of GM’s offices by June 16 at 7 a.m.

“As of 7 a.m. Monday morning, General Motors can have their building back, and not until,” Buckley stated.

The judge did not award GM one penny in damages. “Considering all of the evidence, including but not restricted to the deceit-like behavior that induced CAW concessions and the almost immediate breach, without apology, of a newly signed agreement,” the judge stated, “I find without hesitation that GM Canada does not come to court with clean hands.”

To accuse GM bosses of having unclean hands is an understatement. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been cut by the Big Three, going back to the huge wave of plant closings and layoffs by GM in 1987. Some 150,000 livelihoods have been wiped out since the 2005 Delphi bankruptcy.

The dramatic action on the part of CAW members began not long after a 13-week UAW strike at American Axle Motors—once part of GM—forced 30 GM plants to close. Both the strike and the blockade suggest a resurgence of militancy on the part of autoworkers.

The fight may spread. In Moraine the union has also stated its intent to fight the closing. There could also be resistance in Mexico, where, according to union leader Edgar Arroyo, “The news hit us like a bucket of cold water. It’s going to affect us all.” Some 4,500 people work at the factory in Toluca, an industrial hub west of Mexico City.

The struggle is long overdue. Labor-management cooperation, a fraudulent formulation from the start, is finished. The bosses are out for blood and the only option is to fight back.

Martha Grevatt has worked for Chrysler in Ohio for over 20 years.

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