Canadian Auto Workers union dismantles blockade at parts plant

[dcsmart]

A blockade set up by members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 1285 to prevent General Motors from removing its tooling equipment from SKD Automotive, a parts supplier in Brampton, Ontario, was dismantled late Tuesday night.

The stand down came after an Ontario Superior Court judge granted an injunction against the union's action earlier in the day. At the hearing, the union offered no objections to the court's decision. "We couldn't win this legally," said Paulo Ribeiro, a full time CAW official.

The blockade began December 23rd when GM sent trucks to the parts plant to remove equipment it had installed there to make stamped metal components for its Hummer SUV and passenger cars assembled in Fairfax, Kansas. The attempt by GM to remove the equipment came during the Christmas shutdown period after GM dissolved its contracts with SKD on the grounds that the parts company had acknowledged its insolvency and had effectively ceased operations.

SKD, founded in Windsor, Ontario in 1937, also has facilities elsewhere in the Toronto area, in Michigan, and in Mexico. The company is expected to file for temporary bankruptcy protection within the week.

One hundred and forty workers are employed at the Brampton plant. Another ninety are already on layoff. The workers fear not only the prospect of imminent unemployment but also that an SKD bankruptcy would designate them as "unsecured creditors," thereby threatening their severance pay. The plant has a large number of veteran workers, some of them with as much as thirty years of seniority. The union calculates that GM should be held responsible for $160,000 which represents ten percent of any severance load— because it habitually contracted ten percent of the work at SKD.
Text

FULL ARTICLE
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/cana-j17.shtml