GM Canada strike in danger
Why is Unifor trying to gag CAMI strikers?
By
Carl Bronski and Jerry White
22 September 2017
The strike by nearly 2,800 autoworkers at GM Canada’s CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, just outside of London, is at a critical turning point. While rank-and-file workers remain determined to defend their jobs and fight for improved wages, benefits and working conditions, officials from the Unifor union said Wednesday that they have offered an “olive branch” to GM to end the strike.
In discussions with reporters from the World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter, CAMI workers have made it clear that they want to reverse years of concessions handed over by Unifor, and its predecessor organization, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), including multi-tier wages and the end of defined benefit pensions that punish younger workers, a decade-long pay freeze for older workers and mandatory six-day workweeks that disrupt their family lives.
Unifor officials, however, have limited their demands to seeking a meaningless promise from GM to make the CAMI plant the lead factory for the production of the company’s hot-selling Equinox SUVs, and reducing production at two Mexican plants that produce a smaller number of the model.
In an interview with the London Free Press, Unifor Local 88 Plant Chairman Mike Van Boekel, standing in front of a huge Canadian flag with the words “Canadian Made”, mentioned the unspecified “olive branch” proposal even after acknowledging that GM has refused to even answer the union’s pleas to resume talks. Van Boekel said the proposal was “fair” and “could get us moving really quickly.” In other words, Unifor is preparing another miserable sellout by offering more concessions in…