Union president Jerry Dias has announced a $1.3 billion investment by General Motors to build an unnamed pickup truck at the Oshawa GM plant. Dias made the announcement Thursday morning at the Sheraton Centre. GM has signed a new tentative contract agreement with Unifor auto workers in St. Catharines and Oshawa. Sources to the talks indicated the two sides struck a deal at 2:45 a.m. for current work in St. Catharines and Oshawa plants, with many ideas also discussed, including expanding GM’s Canadian footprint once again.
A note of caution
If fulfilled, the plan is immensely important to the Ontario economy which has relied on the auto industry especially in Oshawa for more than a century. But such announcements at contract-signing time are often subject to change after the excitement of the moment. Caution may be in order.
