Workers in Oshawa, Ontario threaten strike against GM

[CatiaJockey]

Originally Posted by NOODLESgoneWILD

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(on a side note....buy Boeing stock, its on the way back up to $100 a share in the next 6 months )

Can you explain why stock may be going up if you're threatening a strike? Just curious really, is there something you can share?

[Design1stCode2nd]

CAW is between a rock and a hard place. After the new UAW contract and the rise of the Loonie compared to the Dollar building in Canada isn't the savings it used to be. Its cheaper now to build in the U.S. Buzz Hargrove says he is intent on taking a hard line to the two-tier wage structure and if he holds that line don't expect the CAW to be building anything from GM.

GM already has too many dealers and brands it can't cut or kill due to cost and franchise laws. When you have half the market share you used to but still have almost the same number of brands and dealers it's going to be hard to turn a profit.

Also if gas doesn't level off or come down the Camaro's return along with the Challenger will be short-lived. I really wanted a V-8 Convertible too, but an extra $150/month in gas does give one pause.

[camaro5]

Originally Posted by Design1stCode2nd

Also if gas doesn't level off or come down the Camaro's return along with the Challenger will be short-lived. I really wanted a V-8 Convertible too, but an extra $150/month in gas does give one pause.

I've learned through research that it's not about V8 engines. It's about high performance. I want to go fast, therefore I will get around 20mpg average city and highway.

Now I see you drive an RX8. Really nice car. The epa fuel mileage is 18 / 24 mpg and 0-60mph in 6.7 sec. Not a V8, no and I mean 0 low end torque. I'm 6'7" and can't even get in an RX8.

The Pontiac G8 is rated 15 / 24mpg, 0-60 in a much quicker 5.3 seconds, room for the whole neighborhood inside. BMW's with similar performance deliver similar fuel mileage. Camaro V8 will also be similar.

I'm not buying a economy (slow) car to save any amount. But to each his own. But where does the $150 extra come from?

[NOODLESgoneWILD]

Originally Posted by CatiaJockey

Can you explain why stock may be going up if you're threatening a strike? Just curious really, is there something you can share?

Nothing special to share...if you look at the 5 year trend...Boeing stock is at its highest (for the year) in the 4th Quarter and at its lost in and around the end of the 1st / Beginning of the 2nd Qrt.

For years now I buy when it hits it lowest point (1st.2nd Qrt)...and sell at the end of the year...and make 15 - 25% gain in that 8/9 month period....Buy low...Sell high

And there’s no reason why this trend will not continue, as we've stabilized the 787 supplier lines, and the record sales of the last two year will bring stability over the next 5 to 10 years.

It’s all in the financial times.

[camaro5]

The good news is they are going to start talking...

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TORONTO - Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove says he will not sign a new labour contract with General Motors Corp. unless the company pledges new vehicle and parts programs for its Ontario factories.

"We can't ratify with GM without the product commitments at all locations," including the automaker's truck and car assembly plants in Oshawa, its transmission plant in Windsor, and engine factory in St. Catharines, Hargrove said Monday.

The brinkmanship by Hargrove came after the CAW secured a new three-year labour contract with Ford Motor Co. in ratification votes held over the weekend. A final tally of the results confirmed 67 per cent of the CAW's 9,000 Ford members voted yes to the deal, the union said.

Hargrove said the union would start discussions with GM on Thursday.

Under so-called pattern bargaining at Detroit's traditional three automakers, a labour agreement struck at one company is typically used as the model for deals at the other two. The CAW will also hold an initial meeting with Chrysler today to try to trigger bargaining, Hargrove said. The union cannot strike GM or Chrysler until its collective agreement expires in September.

As part of its main goal to protect jobs, the United Auto Workers, the CAW's sister union in the United States, won guarantees from GM last year that promised specific vehicles will be built in specific U.S. plants. The deal also specified the production life cycles of the vehicles. For example, GM pledged that the Pontiac G6 would continue to be built in Orion, Mich., until 2013, according to the union.

The CAW wants a similar commitment. GM has yet to announce a new vehicle for Oshawa beyond the upcoming redesigned Chevrolet Camaro muscle car. The company is pitching a $700-million project that would see it make more fuel-efficient transmissions at the St. Catharines facility and step up environmental research at its engineering centre in Oshawa.

GM has insisted in background discussions with some media outlets that it needs to narrow a $30.25-per-hour labour gap disadvantage its Canadian plants have against U.S. factories operated by Japanese manufacturers. The CAW has rejected that comparison. It says the new Ford deal brings costs generally in line with those of the UAW at about $60 per hour.

"For us to continue to earn our mandates here in Canada, we've got to keep pace with that and ideally go even further," David Paterson, GM Canada's vice-president of corporate and environmental affairs, said in an interview on April 25. "The cupboard is bare."

Stacey Firth, Ford's chief negotiator in the CAW deal, said the agreement contains several immediate cost savings that will help Ford's bottom line.

They include wage freezes, outsourcing of non-core work, a one-week reduction in vacation pay, and 30 minutes of added production at its Oakville assembly plant.

She said Ford continues to look at the $30 cost gap with Japanese manufacturers as a benchmark, but that it wasn't realistic to expect CAW members would accept such a dramatic erosion of their pay and benefits to cut that gap.


http://www.canada.com/victoriatimesc...3-eeed0a5f5eec


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[camaro5]

General Motors of Canada Ltd. must produce new products at its plants, including a car operation in Oshawa, or it won't get a new contract with workers, says union leader Buzz Hargrove.

Fresh off weekend ratification of a pattern-setting contract at Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd., Hargrove said yesterday that he expects GM to match the three-year deal and also make commitments on new models and components.

"We can't ratify with GM without the product commitment at all locations," said Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers.

He told reporters CAW and GM negotiators will start talks on Thursday and hope to resolve any issues in a few days, because Ford has already set the pattern under traditional Big Three bargaining.

Hargrove said parent General Motors Corp. made product commitments to the United Auto Workers in the United States last fall, and he expects the same assurances here.

The union, which represents about 13,000 GM workers, is looking for long-term transmission work at the Windsor operation, extra parts output at plants in St. Catharines and additional models at a new flexible manufacturing complex in Oshawa.

GM will build the Camaro sports car at the Oshawa complex but has not identified any other models for production.

The company expects the Camaro to generate significant demand, but the complex needs other cars to justify its huge investment.

In recent months, local union officials have said they fear GM will use commitments for any further models in Oshawa as a bargaining chip in talks.

About 2,000 union members are on layoff at GM, and the company plans to cut another shift and about 1,000 jobs at the Oshawa truck plant this fall.

A GM spokesperson could not be reached for comment on the issue of product commitments and whether the Ford pact meets GM's goals in lowering labour costs.

GM of Canada is pushing to eliminate a $30 an hour gap in labour costs with non-unionized, Japanese-based automakers in the U.S. south, but Hargrove said that goal is unrealistic.

"The rhetoric and the reality are two different things," he said. "We believe General Motors will meet this pattern, and they'll do it once they understand, as Ford did, that this is a very, very major step by our union to try to assist in the problems the companies face."

Ford said it expects to save labour costs because of a wage freeze, a temporary halt to cost of living payments, reduction in vacation pay, more sharing of health-care expenses and lower starting wages and benefits for new employees under the contract.

However, Stacey Allerton Firth, Ford's chief negotiator, said in an interview it is difficult at this point to estimate the savings the new contract will generate.

Hargrove said CAW and GM officials disagreed on some "numbers" during a union presentation yesterday morning but would not elaborate on the differences.

"It's nothing we felt, or GM felt, were insurmountable," Hargrove noted.

GM's current contract with the CAW expires in mid-September.


http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/421693


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[camaro5]

A commitment to assemble new vehicles in Oshawa, Ont., is one of the key demands the Canadian Auto Workers is making in contract talks with General Motors of Canada Ltd. - at a time when the vulnerability of GM's two assembly plants there appears to be growing.

The union also wants the auto maker to commit to new investment at a Windsor, Ont., transmission factory and an engine and parts operation in St. Catharines, Ont., president Buzz Hargrove said yesterday in announcing that full-scale talks with GM begin Thursday.
"They can't get a settlement with us unless we can solve the production allocation problems at all three locations," Mr. Hargrove declared.

That bargaining position could prove difficult for GM, which has eliminated one of three production shifts at its Oshawa truck plant already this year and announced last week that output will be reduced even further in September to just a single shift.

That announcement is on top of the closing of one of the company's two car plants in Oshawa at the end of last year and the cancellation of plans to build several rear-wheel-drive cars at the remaining plant later this decade.

The only new car allocated so far to the remaining car plant is the revived Chevrolet Camaro for the 2009 model year. But production of the muscle car is expected to be about 100,000 vehicles annually, not enough to sustain two shifts of employees at an assembly plant.

All the trimming at what was once the largest single automotive complex in North America means there will be just four shifts of production and about 5,500 CAW members working at the two plants by this fall, compared with 9,400 working eight shifts at three plants as of the end of November, 2007.

To further add to the cloud over Oshawa, General Motors Corp. made a commitment during talks with the United Auto Workers in the U.S. last year that all of its existing U.S. pickup truck plants would receive the investment necessary to build the next generation of the vehicles.

An agreement already reached with Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. and ratified by CAW members on the weekend leaves wage and benefit costs essentially flat, Mr. Hargrove reiterated yesterday.

GM officials have stated publicly that they need to slash costs dramatically to meet a goal of reducing hourly wage and benefit costs to $47 (U.S.) an hour from the current level of $77 in Canada to match the hourly costs of Asian-based auto makers in the United States.

GM gave no indication during a meeting yesterday that they will break the pattern agreement established at Ford, Mr. Hargrove said. "We believe General Motors will meet this pattern and they'll see it, as Ford did, as a very, very major step by our union to try to assist in the problems that the companies face," he said.

The CAW agreed to a three-year wage freeze, an end to cost-of-living adjustments until late in 2009 and gave up 40 hours of holiday time at Ford.

On balance, the competitive gap between Ford and the U.S. plants operated by the Japan-based auto makers is reduced, Stacy Allerton Firth, Ford Canada's vice-president of human resources, said in an interview yesterday. She would not reveal the amount by which costs have been reduced.

But one industry source said yesterday that investment in Canada will be scaled back if GM and Chrysler LLC agree to the same deal.

The CAW will meet Chrysler officials today to discuss the economic pattern set at Ford.

This source said Chrysler's minivan plant in Windsor, Ont., is at least as vulnerable as GM's Oshawa operations - in part, because sales of those vehicles have fallen so much that Chrysler no longer needs two minivan plants. Its other minivan plant in St. Louis is more cost competitive because of the rise in value of the Canadian dollar and last year's UAW agreement, which dramatically reduced hourly labour costs.

GENERAL MOTORS (GM)

Close: $22.36 (U.S.), down 84¢

Oshawa then and now

THEN

General Motors operations in Oshawa as of November, 2007

Car plant No. 1

Three shifts producing the Chevrolet Impala

Car plant No. 2

Two shifts producing the Buick Allure and Pontiac Grand Prix.

Combined 5,500 employees

Truck plant

Three shifts producing the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra full-sized pickups.

3,900 employees

NOW

Operations as of April, 2008

Car plant

Three shifts producing the Impala and Allure

3,700 employees

Truck plant

One shift assembling the Silverado and Sierra.

2,900 employees (cutback to one shift in September will reduce truck plant to about 1,800 employees)

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...Story/Business


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[Jiu Jitsu Jon]

The company expects the Camaro to generate significant demand, but the complex needs other cars to justify its huge investment.

Here's an idea...Firebirds/Trans-Ams. Build them on the Zeta platform. Have a V-6, a V-8, and a Trans Am.

[Design1stCode2nd]

Originally Posted by camaro5

The Pontiac G8 is rated 15 / 24mpg, 0-60 in a much quicker 5.3 seconds, room for the whole neighborhood inside. BMW's with similar performance deliver similar fuel mileage. Camaro V8 will also be similar.

I'm not buying a economy (slow) car to save any amount. But to each his own. But where does the $150 extra come from?

Guess I didn’t word that right, yep the RX8 will probably be less fuel efficient than a V-8 Camaro. From my standpoint I’m thinking in another 2 years if gas prices are as high as some analysts claim ($7/gallon) then a V-8 will easily cost me $150 more per month than something with less power. Performance for performance I think the Camaro will offer good gas mileage, its just that if we do get to European levels of gas cost I’ll probably have to go to two vehicles. One fun but fuel efficient like a Cooper Clubman S ($202 less per month at $7/gal) and something just fun like a used Z4, Boxster, Elise or Corvette.

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by Jiu Jitsu Jon

The company expects the Camaro to generate significant demand, but the complex needs other cars to justify its huge investment.

Here's an idea...Firebirds/Trans-Ams. Build them on the Zeta platform. Have a V-6, a V-8, and a Trans Am.

except . . . that would reduce Camaro sales (and production) to say 80k fromm 100k and have maybe 30k firebird sales. 10k extra units isn't enough. These are only guestimates but you get the idea

[camaro5]

Originally Posted by Design1stCode2nd

Guess I didn’t word that right, yep the RX8 will probably be less fuel efficient than a V-8 Camaro. From my standpoint I’m thinking in another 2 years if gas prices are as high as some analysts claim ($7/gallon) then a V-8 will easily cost me $150 more per month than something with less power. Performance for performance I think the Camaro will offer good gas mileage, its just that if we do get to European levels of gas cost I’ll probably have to go to two vehicles. One fun but fuel efficient like a Cooper Clubman S ($202 less per month at $7/gal) and something just fun like a used Z4, Boxster, Elise or Corvette.

Gotcha

Yes, if you have a decent commute, a commuter car is or may be called for. My brother drives a Camry Hybrid for a rather long commute. I work from home.

z

[camaro5]

On Thursday, May 8, 2008, negotiations officially began between the CAW and General Motors with both sides making economic presentations.

CAW Local 222 President Chris Buckley is the chairperson of the CAW/GM Master Bargaining Committee.

Talks will continue through the weekend in Toronto.

https://www.cawlocal.ca/222/

l

[camaro5]

On Thursday, May 8, 2008, negotiations officially began between the CAW and General Motors with both sides making economic presentations. Talks continued throughout the weekend on local and master issues and have resumed again Monday morning.

Pictured below: CAW Local 222 President Chris Buckley, chairperson of the CAW/GM Master Bargaining Committee


https://www.cawlocal.ca/222/default.asp

[80Zedder]

I know chris buckley personally, i hope they all iron it out as i may be out on layoff soon, or striking which i do not want to do, i just want to work and come home to my wife.