By GREG KEENAN
Monday, November 21, 2005 Page B1
Globe and Mail auto industry reporter
A sweeping plant closing and job cut plan expected to be announced as early as today by embattled General Motors Corp. could include the elimination of a significant number of jobs in Canada.
Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove said he will meet with General Motors of Canada Ltd. president Michael Grimaldi this morning when he expects to hear about the restructuring program GM Canada's parent is expected to unveil.
Mr. Hargrove would not speculate on how Canada might be affected, but he has said in the past that promises made and investments won during negotiations on a new contract with the auto maker earlier this fall should help insulate the Canadian operations from major cuts.
The world's largest auto maker said last month that it will cut about 25,000 jobs and close plants amid declining market share and soaring costs.
Canadian jobs in danger could number more than 3,000, some Canadian Auto Workers union leaders believe, if GM shuts its transmission plant in Windsor, Ont., and a parts plant in St. Catharines, Ont., and eliminates a shift of production at one of its car plants in Oshawa, Ont. GM employs 20,000 workers in Canada.
One union leader said yesterday, however, that he doubts the auto maker will make such drastic cuts here, with the elimination of a shift in Oshawa -- and about 600 jobs -- the farthest it will go.
"We have an optics problem," another union official said yesterday, referring to the political difficulty the world's largest auto maker would have in closing several U.S. plants and wiping out thousands of jobs south of the border while leaving its Canadian operations relatively untouched.
"I think there has to be a Canadian impact," said Doug Orr, chairman of the GM unit of CAW local 199, which represents workers at GM's engine and components plants in St. Catharines.
GM is beset by a series of problems.
Many of those relate to the erosion of its market share, which has fallen to less than 25 per cent in a roller-coaster year that has seen GM and its Detroit-based rivals Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler division of DaimlerChrysler AG rack up huge sales on the back of generous incentive programs, only to see sales plunge when the incentives were removed.
The recent woes include billions of dollars in financial losses, the bankruptcy filing of its largest parts supplier and former subsidiary Delphi Corp., demands by large shareholder Kirk Kerkorian to increase shareholder value and an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into an overstatement of profits in 2001.
Analysts expect the world's largest auto maker to close a minivan assembly plant in Doraville, Ga., a specialty car assembly plant in Lansing, Mich., and at least one other plant, possibly two more.
GM has more plants than it needs assembling its full-sized pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, one industry analyst said yesterday.
That has led to speculation that it could close a plant in Janesville, Wis., that churns out the big SUVs, whose sales have plunged in the wake of record-high fuel prices.
Other U.S. plants on the endangered list include Oklahoma City, where GM assembles mid-sized SUVs and a car plant in Lake Orion, Mich., which has been operating at less than capacity.
The GM cuts are part of a grim time for the two largest Detroit-based auto makers. GM's cross-town rival Ford is also struggling. Its chairman Bill Ford has said he will unveil a plant closing and job-cut restructuring in January.
The potential elimination of thousands of jobs at Delphi, plus that company's demand that auto workers cut wages to the $10 (U.S.) to $12 range from $27 an hour also has the U.S. auto capital on edge.
