Union officials with the Nemak plant in Windsor are vowing to "what whatever they have to do" to keep jobs in the area.
On July 16, Nemak announced its plans to cease operations in Windsor by the middle of next year, leaving 270 employees out of work at the engine block manufacturing plant.
On Sunday morning, dozens of workers filed into the Unifor Local 200 for a meeting about the announcement and to hear how the union is handling the news.
The company announced it will move production of the I-6 diesel engine block, the Corvette engine block and begin building a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) engine block at their facilities in Monterey, Mexico.
Unifor Local 200 President John D’Agnolo said Nemak's decision is one of betrayal.
According to D'Agnolo, Nemak officials brought FCA officials in for a tour of the Windsor facility weeks before the announcement of the shutdown. He said that at this time, FCA was looking to award a company with the production of an engine that was identical to the I-6 engine block already produced at Nemak in Windsor. D'Agnolo claims the tour was just a way for Nemak to secure being awarded the FCA job before moving to Mexico. He said both product lines in Mexico will use the production process and technology developed at the Nemak Windsor production facility, showing that Nemak knew well in advance what they were doing. D'Agnolo also said the building of a new die-cast facility in Mexico was "salt in the wounds."
"They saw, the robots, saw the work we had done to see how successful the I-6 is. [Nemak] was awarded that after that tour. So they used our members, They did the work they needed to get done to get that program and they're moving it to Monterrey," said D'Agnolo. "So not only are they taking all our work, they're building another factory there. So it was well planned out and they knew what they were doing to our members quite some time ago."
D'Agnolo said Nemak employees at the Windsor plant are especially feeling the sting. This comes after they accepted an agreement for a four-year wage freeze in exchange to keep the plant open until at least 2022.
"They were disgusted. They were in total shock. They had that hope that maybe because Chrysler hasn't awarded that program yet, maybe they'll get that program. They were quite happy when they did that tour through the plant," he said. "They agreed that they keep the work all the way to 2022 and they broke the agreement because they can. There's nothing out there that states they can't."
When they announced the closure, the company issued a statement saying the decision was a result of the early phase-out of an export program with a customer in China, which is expected to bring capacity utilization at the plant down to less than 10 per cent by next year. However, D'Agnolo said low production wouldn't have been an issue, had they brought the FCA engine block program to Windsor instead of Mexico.
He said he believes it all comes down to saving money.
"Let's make this perfectly clear, it's about the wages," he exclaimed. "It's about the labour cost in Mexico in comparison to Canada because we can't compete with them,"
Unifor National President Jerry Dias also took aim at Nemak for accepting millions of dollars in government grant money and tax breaks.
“Nemak cannot shut down its Windsor plant after taking millions in government handouts and posting revenues of over $4 billion worldwide,” said Dias. “This is a betrayal of both the workers who generated their profits and the public they siphoned millions from.”
The union plans to meet with the CEO of Nemak in the coming weeks to discuss the closure. D'Agnolo said they are also going to continue to put pressure on the government to encourage Nemak to keep the work in Windsor.