General Motors hired workers in Oshava for several generations. Thus, while its presence in the city has decreased for decades, GM is still looming in large cultural conditions, since it is expected that hundreds of workers will be dismissed at the factory in the new year.
GM began its Canadian operations in Oshava back in 1918. A car giant said that it was working on the plan to continue construction in Oshava for another 100 years.
But in the face of American tariffs, what is the future of the plant? This is what we heard during our reports about impending dismissals.
GM will still build trucks
As was first announced in 2023, GM spends $ 280 million on the construction of the next generation of Chevrolet Silverados in Oshava.
“Currently, the plant’s modernization is underway,” said Arian Pereira representative Arian Pereira.
A native of Oshava Todd Forbes is one of about 2000 workers who should be fired in January, when General Motors reduces the third shift on his Oshawa, ONT. Some consider the possibility of moving in another place, against the backdrop of high levels of unemployment in the city and the automotive industry under the threat of US tariffs.
Currently, the plant makes heavy and lightweight Chevy Silverados on the same GM-Self-Plant Line, which did this, according to the company's website.
You might think that it seems contradictory that GM takes on the construction of new trucks in Oshava, despite the reduction in the shift next year. But the additional mandate of the product is a “really good sign” for the future plant, says Dimitry Anastakis, LR Wilson and RJ Currie Chair in the history of Canadian business at Toronto University.
“It will be a huge impulse of confidence,” he said.
“Even if this is really reduced to two shifts, you have a guarantee for the foreseeable future of significant production, which means significant employment,” Anastakis said.
Chris Wu, the chairman of Unifor at the Oshawa plant, said that he would not comment on the influence of this production on workers.
Employment reached its peak in the 1980s
CBC News heard from some readers who say that work on GM is no longer important for Oshava. They argued that the urban automobile industry has declined for decades, and the city moved to other industries, including healthcare and technology.
It is true that the plant has declined in the amount of the past few decades, from the peak of 23,000 employees in the 1980s to 3,000 employees now.
Today, only about three percent of Oshava’s labor force operate in the production industry.
But the GM plant is still a major employer of well-paid jobs with advantages, says Jeff Gray, President of Unifor Local 222, who represents employees.
This is the case of auto workers
Auto -work of Oshawa also seems to be good at their work. The plant won 9 JD Power Power Calught Change Awards, which is studying the quality of the new car. This is more than any other GM plant – although Oshawa won its last award in 2013.
It is also worth noting that trucks are taken – or, as Anastakis says, “large gas machines” – continue to be in great demand in North America.
According to Gray, the Oshawa plant has a highly qualified labor force that makes GM a very profitable truck.
“We do [GM] A lot of money, ”he says. “We have done this for several decades.”
“Our business justification is great,” says Gray, and this is not only he tries to do this business. He says that Lana Payne, the National President of Unifor, forces the federal government to come to a trade agreement with the United States, which will return the Canadian auto production to the “flat game field”.
CBC News also heard that representatives of all levels of the government are in regular negotiations with GM.
Construction of military vehicles on the table
One opportunity for the Oshav plant – this can begin to build military vehicles – and there is some precedent for this.
In July 2024, the Canadian military awarded the GM Defense Canada Canada under a contract for $ 35.8 million to create 90 light tactical vehicles, at least they were built in North Carolina, according to media reports.
GM says that it cannot comment on the future planning of the product in Oshava for competitive reasons. Oshava mayor Dan Carter also refused to provide detailed information about his meetings with GM and the provincial and federal government.
General Motors added 250 temporary jobs to her Fort -Uane factory, Indiana, since he is preparing to reduce hundreds of jobs in Oshava in the new year. Christian d'Avino from CBC visited Fort -Uane to find out more about where these jobs are going.
But the mayor said that he thinks that the Oshava plant has the opportunity to make military vehicles, as during the Second World War.
“We want to lead to the fact that labor, technology, lines, history here, and we can satisfy all the requirements that they are looking for,” said CBC News Carter.
Nevertheless, the provision of a military contract would be less for the decision, and more “possible bone” to the factory, Greg Leison, digital and mobile editor in Automotive News Canada, says.
“You are never going to produce 60,000 military vehicles per year as you do 60,000 pickups a year,” he says. “But this is some kind of work at some level at some factories in Ontario.”
Can Oshava become a center for electric vehicles?
Anastakis says that the automotive industry as a whole goes to electric cars (EV). Ideally, he says that it would be great if the GM re -equipment of the Oshawa plant for the construction of electric vehicles.
But he says that US President Donald Trump Politics damaged this transition to electric carsPutting North American companies behind Chinese and European automakers.
Chinese manufacturers are “far and far away” leaders in the field of electric vehicles, says Graig Muzzle, an assistant professor at the University of McMaster and the former head of Toyota Canada.
The world goes electric, and Canada is at a hinge point, he says.
“We can continue to run for the top three [Ford, General Motors and Stellantis] This does about one vehicle in Canada for every two or three that they sell, or we can accept new manufacturers and make a more global forecast, ”says the face.
Last year, Canada put a 100 percent tariff for Chinese electric vehicles. The federal government has encountered calls to raise these tariffs and Looks at the possibility of thisDespite the concern from Prime Minister Ontario Duga Ford.
But Chinese electric cars are more accessible than other electric cars, because most of them were created by automakers supported by the state “with cheap labor in accordance with the dubious practice of labor,” says Leison.
According to him, most plants work at coal power plants that produce electricity.
According to Leison, letting in the Chinese electric car.
“You must ask yourself if you want to reduce Chinese -made electric cars, what cost?” He said.
“This is not just cash. This is morality, it is ethical and ecology. ”
