(snip)"Is this what the first trade war of the global economic crisis looks like?
Ordered by Congress to "buy American" when spending money from the $787 billion stimulus package, the town of Peru, Ind., stunned its Canadian supplier by rejecting sewage pumps made outside of Toronto. After a Navy official spotted Canadian pipe fittings in a construction project at Camp Pendleton, Calif., they were hauled out of the ground and replaced with American versions. In recent weeks, other Canadian manufacturers doing business with U.S. state and local governments say they have been besieged with requests to sign affidavits pledging that they will only supply materials made in the USA.
Outrage spread in Canada, with the Toronto Star last week bemoaning "a plague of protectionist measures in the U.S." and Canadian companies openly fretting about having to shift jobs to the United States to meet made-in-the-USA requirements. This week, the Canadians fired back. A number of Ontario towns, with a collective population of nearly 500,000, retaliated with measures effectively barring U.S. companies from their municipal contracts -- the first shot in a larger campaign that could shut U.S. companies out of billions of dollars worth of Canadian projects."(snip)
The CAW members at Aradco in Windsor, a working-class city on the banks of the Detroit River, had defied a plant closing with no compensation including no severance pay by Aradco’s parent company, Catalina Precision Products. Catalina halted production the week of March 8, when Chrysler severed its contracts with the corporation, which stamps parts for Chrysler.
“The workers here have decided to take over the plant. That’s the only thing we have in order to try to get the monies that are owed to us,” said Gerry Farnham, president of CAW Local 195, to the press March 18.
Catalina refused to pay the workers their severance, vacation pay and other benefits. Almost all of Aradco’s supplies are sold to Chrysler LLC, owned by the private-equity firm Cerebus Capital Management. The same is true for Aramco, another subsidiary of Catalina. Chrysler is now threatening to pull out of Canada if it doesn’t receive massive wage concessions from the CAW and a bailout from the government."(snip)
(snip)WINDSOR -- Saying it has no new product to offer now or in the foreseeable future, General Motors pulled the plug on its Windsor Transmission plant with "finality" on Monday, putting 1,400 employees out of work.
Arturo Elias, president of GM Canada Ltd., came to Windsor personally to break the news to the plant’s staff, ending years of speculation and politicking regarding the factory’s future.
In separate shift meetings with all 1,200 members of CAW Local 1973 and the plant’s 200 salaried employees, Elias said the closure had nothing to do with the City of Windsor or the quality of the workforce.
GM simply has no replacement product for Windsor to build, Elias said, now that market has shifted from four-speed automatic transmissions to five and six-speed gearboxes. The Windsor plant, built in 1920, will close in the second quarter of 2010, he told employees.
“This extremely difficult decision in no way reflects on our excellent Windsor workforce or their outstanding track record in producing great transmissions,” Elias said in a statement.
The CAW first learned of the decision during contract talks in Toronto on Friday. The union and company spent the weekend negotiating for a plant closure agreement and buyouts for the workforce.
GM Canada told its Windsor employees last month that the company would no longer produce the automatic four-speed transmission they assemble after mid 2010. But there was no word then about the plant’s future.
Most of the area’s politicians have spent the last 18 months urging GM to find a new product for the Windsor plant and pledging assistance. But the decision to close the factory came down suddenly and without any recourse, MPP Sandra Pupatello (L -- Windsor West) said."(snip)



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