Skilled Trades Association, CAW Local 199 St. Catharines (General Motors Unit) | ||||||
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October 30, 2003 Mr. Michael A. Grimaldi President and General Manager General Motors of Canada Mr. Grimaldi: I am writing you this letter on behalf of the laid off skilled trades in St. Catharines. You need to be aware of the “State of the Business” as management likes to call it, in the city’s General Motors plants. As I am sure you are aware, there were a number of skilled trades laid off several weeks ago including eight pipefitters / steamfitters. Since then, the laid off trades, of every skill set, have united to bring the abhorrent treatment of all the laid off trades people to the forefront. I started working at General Motors in 1985 on production in the old St. Catharines metal casting plant. Although I enjoyed the work there, I did what several of my peers had done before me and I took an apprenticeship in the trades in 1989. Training to be a pipefitter for four years gave me a sense of pride and a belief that if we did our jobs well, and to the best of our ability, we would be rewarded with long and enjoyable careers with this company. I see now that I was wrong. St. Catharines has some of the best trades people in the world, bar none. While helping to install the HFV6 lines in the engine plant, we worked for a contract supervisor by the name of Garth Philbrick that had over twenty five years experience in the trade. He had said that the quality of the journey persons in the plant were every bit as good as the trades people from the pipefitter’s union hall. Then I have to ask you Mr. Grimaldi, why can we not wok as supplemental trades in our own plants. It seems St. Catharines management would rather spend seventy dollars an hour for outside contractors, when our own laid off trades could supplement the other trades for only about twelve dollars an hour above what we are paid while we are laid off. Cost effective? I don’t think so. Why would management want to bring in outside contractors when they have little or no knowledge of the layout of the plant or how it operates? All the outside contractors have an interest in, is how they can get the job done quickly and maximize THEIR profit. Your own trades have an interest in making sure the job is done to THEIR standards so that no one has to go back and do it again, and in time, when the lines have to be serviced, the job can be done simply and with a minimum of downtime. Why, for the sake of cost cutting and reducing the “hours per engine”, do all of the cost reductions have to fall on the back of the hourly worker? I see more contract people with clip boards walking around now, adding nothing to the value of the engine, than I have ever seen in the eighteen years I have been employed by General Motors. I am told that their salaries come from a different account because they are on contract. I maintain that their salaries still come out of the customers pocket and their numbers have to be reduced. The skilled trades and the craft unions before them built this company and it is about time that we were respected for our accomplishments. St. Catharines has had many successes over the last few years since we were awarded the Gen III engine. I have helped to install that line as well as the aforementioned HFV6 and the new radiator support and strut assembly. The workforce here is strong and as skilled as anyone in the world. I hope that you will consider this when awarding new work for our city so that we can all have a bright future here. Thank you for your time, Bob Bowman | ||||||
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