2018: On the Monday after Thanksgiving, General Motors workers in the U.S. and Canada learned of the company's announcement that it would be idling five plants and cutting around 14,000 jobs. In this urgent, multi-episode series, we will be talking to workers at plants in Ohio, Michigan, and Canada. In Part IIII, we talk to Cory Weir and Rebecca Keetch, two workers at the award-winning GM plant in Oshawa, Ontario. We talk about the pivotal role Oshawa has played in Canadian labor history and about what workers there (and everywhere) need to do to fight back against this system of corporate-assured destruction.      

 

Additional links/info below...

• Neal E. Boudette, New York Times, "G.M. to Idle Plants and Cut Thousands of Jobs as Sales Slow" 
• CBS News, "GM Layoff Announcement Sparks Outrage - and Stock Increase"
• Amara McLaughlin, CBC News, "'They Are Not Closing Our Damn Plant': Union Vows Fight as GM Plans Oshawa Closing"
• Leyland Cecco & Mike Elk, The Guardian, "'No Jobs on the Horizon': Workers Respond to General Motors' Decision to Close Plant"
• The Globe & Mail, "History of General Motors in Oshawa"
• Robert Collison & Sturla Gunnarsson (directors), Final Offer 
• Sam Gindin, The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union 
• Sam Gindin, The Bullet, "Big Three Bargaining: Different Ways of Making History" 
• Sam Gindin, The Bullet, "The Auto Crisis: Placing Our Own Alternative on the Table" 
• Leslie Barrett, WFMJ, "'Drive It Home' Campaign Continuing to Help Save GM Lordstown Plant" 
• Good Jobs Nation website 
• #Shame Campaign website 

 

Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)

• Lobo Loco, "Malte Junior - Hall"
• Wasaru, "Blurred Foam"
• Marwood Williams, "All Hail the Corporation"