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Electro-Motive locks out workers at Canadian plant
The London plant already has a competitive disadvantage because of “Buy American” provisions in the Urban Mass Transit Act.
Yep the year is starting great wouldn’t you say!!
Bye, bye Canada.
NAFTA at work. My brother is in the glass business and that company had several plants in Canada now they have zero. It is to easy in North America to close plants and move jobs, union jobs or not. Companies are bought and sold everyday and the people are just pawns on the board now. I hate it for the workers a job is hard to find and a good job is almost impossible to find.
It’s clear that Caterpillar just wants to rid itself of London, but why loose a productive (but costly?) plant when they have had problems meeting previous demands? Will the brand new Muncie plant be able to suddenly take up full production from London? I dont see why a slower phase out was used.
I am a huge skeptic of the claim that EMD demanded a 50% across the board wage cut. CNBC news reported that claim, and this piece provides no backup for that. How impartial is CNBC news? Sort of like BBC “impartiality?” No, the old GM-owned EMD moved all its production to Canada for reasons never properly explained, but all perfectly legal and often touted as the wave of the future when the NAFTA was signed about twenty years ago. Now a Caterpillar-owned EMD is taking it back to the US, and the Northerners don’t like it. Well, in the US, we didn’t like to see La Grange shut down and later razed.
NAFTA is the sword that cuts both ways. Hey you Canadians, get used to it!
Is Caterpillar going to show itself to be like one of those wooly worms that sting like crazy if you touch them? If so, they will not help those of us who think unions wield too much power. What is being suggested sounds like the industrial management style of a century ago.
The union was warned what would happen if they did not negotiate with management. Drastic pay cuts may have been necessary, but the whole story is not here. Progress Rail/ Caterpillar has the right not to reveal the figures pertaining to the London facility. My employer told us we were great. Then we were told that we were overpaid, had benefits that were too expensive, and that we worked in a facility in need of serious investment in upgrades required by the EPA and FDA. Well, they decided the facility was too old to retrofit and rebuild. The London facility appears to be in the same position in my opinion. EMD also has looked at the political climate, and they fear that CAW may do something irrational, “Occupy London” was stopped cold. EMD reacted to this threat properly.
Typical management tactic: relocate to a low-wage, non-union Third World country, in this case the U.S.
Yee Haw, send them jobs down here. Screw the unions as they are only worried about the BIG Bosses at HQ. I feel bad for the guy’s on the line, but we need the jobs here in the USA.
The comments above are interesting but if you know Caterpillar’s recent history you would know that this is what they do. It is why the UAW so strenuously objected when GM sold EMD and they ended up being bought by somone not named CAT. I would like to know what the ‘legacy costs’ are with the CAW given that their wages and benefits were traditionally GM. I would think that those costs are far above what current CAT UAW employees get in their contracts and that may be the main reason for the lockout- to get the London plant in line with what the current CAT contract is with the UAW. They employ a lot more people making earthmovers than they do making locos and they don’t want to set a precedent for their next negotiation. BTW, when EMD shifted production to Canada the total wage cost savings was over $4 per hour per worker. I’m guessing the CAW didn’t complain back then that the US workers were getting dumped on by EMD strictly because of economic reasons.
Ryan of Oregon. If you want to See raw union Power move up Here to the soviet of Washington. Nothing happens without their approval Or the ACLU
Looks as if Canada is going to be preyed upon by U.S. plutocrats who only seem to care about breaking the middle class. Who do these geniuses think will buy their products when the middle classes can no longer afford to? The 1%, yeh, right; let’s hear it for the shallow, short-sighted, and greedy. And they probably think that they’re patriots. Take it from someone who wore his nation’s uniform for 22 years those that believe in draft-dodging, shirkingt plutocracats are traitors and should be treated as such.
Unions represent a tiny fraction of workers, their power is miniscule, certainly far less than a corporation with a history of needless hostility in its dealings with its workers. I like it that CAT tries to sell the lie that this situation is the workers’ fault for not cheerfully accepting a 50% pay cut. What’s worse is the number of people who rush to the defense of a highly profitable billion-dollar corporation while cheering efforts to shaft the employees. Anyone who thinks this is necessary has no knowledfge of good management practices, especially at heavy manufacturers as profitable as CAT and which don’t have the same toxic labor environment.
While I celebrate the potential for new US jobs, I do sympathize with the unfortunate predicament that the Canadian workers have been placed in by this mutlibillion dollar profitable corporation. A 50 percent pay cut demand at a time when the railroad sector is again flourishing is unprecedented, illogical and completely unjustifiable.
With friends like CAT who needs enemies. Perhaps the executives should be required to take a 50% cut instead. Probably got a big fat bonus and stock options for this move. Have to admit that i love seeing US locomotives built in the US for a change. Unfortunately the dreadful performance of the current slip-o-matic SD-70’s won’t win any more customers for the new plant in Indiana.
I wonder how the CAW felt when the work moved from Lagrange to the London plant. What goes around comes around!
Coming from Detroit I have followed EMD very closely for the last 40 years. During that time it has been sad to see GM’s corporate problems starve EMD of precious financial resources, drive it’s labor cost to a point it was 25 to 30% higher then GE and watch a union tell a company which company it can sell EMD to.
Greenbriar Equity got EMD because the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the United Auto Workers(UAW) would not let Caterpillar(Cat) acquire the company. They inacurately said Cat was going to break up the company and steal it’s technology. This was totally false because at the same time Cat was buying Progress Rail and many other rail operations to dramaticly expand into the rail business.
The CAW and the liberal college professors in Canada have telling the press that Cat is a healthy company and they have no right to cut wages so drastically. I agree that Cat is healthy and doing well but their new division EMD is not doing well.
EMD has lost close to 10% market share during the Greenbriar ownership of 6 years. Since 1978 they have gone from 68% of the market to around 30 to 35% of the market.
Greenbriar Equity admitted at the time of the sale that Railroads both domestically and internationally were questioning Greenbriar’s financial strength to effectively compete with GE, world competitors and have the financial strength to develop new engines, new technologies and at the same time meet stringent US govt. emissions laws.
The future buyers rightfully felt that if EMD was going to survive they needed a strong parent with deep pockets and who would guide the weak division back to competitive and financial strength through through investments, strong R&D and tough love when needed.
The CAW has made the statement that Cat is investing in Indiana, Brazil and India to drive locomotive production from Canada. This is totally false.
GE has been eating EMD’s lunch on production capacity and cost for 35 years. Cat is using it’s deep pockets to
Muncie IN is a pretty desperate place where “any job is better than no job”. CAT recognizes this. Many large corporations recognize this. If you open a plant in a desperate area, they care little what it pays compared to the same work elsewhere. It’s better than unemployment.