The president of Unifor Local 444 says a long shutdown at the Windsor Assembly Plant is going to challenge the community.
The plant is going to be under renovations for a few months, starting in February or March, as it'll be introducing new products in 2015.
Dino Chiodo says there will be wage replacement programs for the 4,500 employees, but they still won't have as much money to spend as they normally would. "What we saw in 2009, when we talked about the CCAA protection from the United States over Chrysler and General Motors -- I mean, if you remember, you could basically shoot a canon down Tecumseh Rd. and not hit anything because there was nobody on the streets," explains the union president. "There was nobody driving around. Businesses didn't stay open because they knew there were a lot of challenges out there."
Chiodo admits the affect on Windsor's economy won't be as drastic as that, but says any time you take wages away from so many people in the community for a period of time, it's going to present issues.