By CRM staff
Toronto, Ontario — February 11, 2019 — General Motors made headlines last year by shutting down several plants and putting thousands of people out of work. The company just announced that it made $8.1 billion in profit last year alone.
The news doesn’t come easily to Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, a general trade union in Canada and the largest private sector union in Canada.
“General Motors is raking in money. Executives and shareholders continue to do incredibly well while they callously plan to take away the very livelihood of Canadian workers in Oshawa,” said Dias.
The Oshawa plant is expected to be shut down at the end of 2019. A recent economic impact study shows that the closure of this plant will result in 24,000 lost jobs and a loss of $1 billion per year in government revenue.
According to Unifor, the numbers show that the U.S. and Canadian markets generate almost all of GM’s global profits but the automaker continues to slash American and Canadian jobs while expanding production in Mexico.
In January it was announced that GM had surpassed Nissan to become Mexico’s largest automaker in terms of vehicle output.
“It would be sheer arrogance to think that Canadian consumers will continue to support GM while it deliberately inflicts harm on our economy,” said Dias. “GM is risking the very core of their future financial success with their relentless pursuit of production at $2 per hour in Mexico.”
