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OSHAWA, Ontario – General Motors has been manufacturing cars in Oshawa, Ontario for more than a century in factories that once employed more than 40,000 people. The company's announcement Monday that it would stop production has led to recriminations across the Canadian political spectrum.
But for Eva McKeen, a paint shop inspector who dominates the northern end of the vast manufacturing complex, the pain and feeling of betrayal far exceeded political and economic arguments.
"Just as you get older, you know you do not have a job, it's really heartbreaking," she said.
Ms. McKeen was one of hundreds of workers who left the factory in protest just before officials were about to announce her death sentence. Outside, they started shaking red flags while blocking the truck entrances to the complex. The ponchos they wore, bearing the logo of their union, Unifor, offered little protection against slush.
"The last thing we want to do is leave the line, we really do not want to do that," McKeen said. "We just want G.M to work with us. "
The G.M. plant in Oshawa is the shadow of its past. The last two assembly lines now employ about 2,500 union members and 300 employees.
Nevertheless, the closing announcement caused a shock wave not only in Oshawa, but across Canada. Long the largest automaker in Canada, G.M. lost this title to Toyota last year and will likely finish fourth or fifth after the Oshawa shutdown. The vast majority of cars manufactured in Canada are sent to American buyers.
Due to the economic importance of the auto industry to Canada, the provincial and federal governments of Ontario joined forces with Washington to bail out General Motors when it failed a decade ago. And preserving access to the US auto market was one of Canada's key objectives during the recent renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
On Monday, GM workers gathered at a local union hall to attend a press conference called by their leaders, and their anger quickly surfaced.
While Jerry Dias, the union's national president, promised to subject the company to the current contract that does not allow him to reduce or shut down plants until 2020, the crowd drowned him with cries of disapproval for G.M.
"We are tired of General Motors sending all our jobs to Mexico," said Dias. "We will do everything in our power to get them to reconsider their decision."
But several politicians on Monday downplayed any idea that GM might have a change of heart about the closure.
Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, said the president of General Motors had told him, "The ship has already left the dock."
Outside the House of Commons in Ottawa, Navdeep Bains, the federal Minister of Industry, said, "We are ready to engage with them, but they have been clear about their position."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he expressed his "deep disappointment" over the closure of GM GM Director General Mary T. Barra. He added that the government is considering measures to help unemployed GM workers "get back on their feet" "
Greig Mordue, a professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and former general manager of Toyota's manufacturing operations in Canada, said the Oshawa site ultimately condemned the plant.
Most other assembly plants in Canada, including a GM plant The plant that will remain open will be located west or north of the largest city in the country, Toronto, along highways allowing direct and easy to Michigan and Ohio. Oshawa is on the other side of Toronto along a sadly congested corridor.
"It's like a 100-year-old grandmother dying," said Mr Mordue. "It's sad but it's not surprising."
It takes relatively little effort to find G.M. Oshawa employees who belong to the third generation and sometimes even the fourth generation of their family.
Even with the closure, the company will not disappear completely from the city. Its Canadian headquarters will remain on the outskirts of the city and there is also an engineering center in the city that conducts research on alternative fuel vehicles.
After the troubles of the company in 2008, a large part of its workforce was reduced by early retirements. But there are relatively few older workers in the Oshawa factory today. Unifor believes that the average age of current workers is between 30 and 40 years old and that they only have 15 years of service, which is far too little for anything related to full board.
Scott Aquanno, a political scientist at the Institute of Technology at the University of Ontario, studied the former professor of geology. Layoffs, said the diversity of the local economy – many people moving to work in Toronto and around Toronto – would help mitigate the effects of layoffs. But he added that people left unemployed would find it difficult, if not impossible, to find work with similar pay and benefits.
Timothy Martin, the 33-year-old son of a 32-year-old veteran of G.M., was only hired on a full-time basis this year. Sitting in a special flap suit to prevent his zippers from scratching the vans on which he installs airbags and cables, Mr. Martin said he was confident of finding work in the construction trades, but he was always worried about the future of the city. following the closures.
"Oshawa has a dark belly," he said. "I do not want to see how dark it can be."
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