Letter to the St. Catharines Standard

     The resumption of truck assembly at GM Oshawa (GM back to making trucks in Oshawa) is a good news story, up to a point. What was not been reported anywhere is the fact that the cessation of assembly operations in Oshawa in 2019 facilitated GM’s exiting almost an entire workforce which enjoyed relatively high wages, good employee benefits and pensions. This enabled GM to replace a relatively higher cost workforce with one with much lower wages, fewer benefits and inferior pensions costing GM only about half of what the pre-2019 workforce cost. The closure and reopening of assembly operations in Oshawa enabled GM to cut its labour costs by about in half all with the enthusiastic support of Unifor.

     This provides reason for skepticism. But there is even more reason to be skeptical about these events. Namely, this is not the first time GM has shut down operations at one of its plants only to start them up again with a drastically lower cost labour force. GM has done this before at a UAW organized plant in Michigan. In view of this, one cannot help but suspect that GM very strategically took a page out of its existing playbook and successfully executed the same tactic in Oshawa to slash its labour costs. By doing so GM showed what it can and will do to impose its will.

Bruce R. Allen   

 

Foundry Workers and Cancer

        For a long time, asbestos stood out as being the focal point, as a carcinogen (cancer causing agent), that Foundry workers were routinely exposed to. Quite a few WSIB claims for mesothelioma, lung cancer or asbestosis were allowed due to exposure to it. A week ago the WSIB allowed a lung cancer claim for a recently deceased worker who was employed at the Affinia/ITT Aimco Foundry that was located on Berryman Ave. in St. Catharines. However, it was not allowed on the basis of the worker's limited exposure to asbestos. It was allowed due to his decades of exposure to silica dust even though the worker had smoked for about half of his life. Silica crystals are a carcinogen. They not only can cause lung cancer. They elevate the risk of gastro-intestinal cancer as well.

 

       Thousands of workers were employed at the GM Foundry on Glendale Ave. which closed in 1995 after approximately 40 years of operation. To my knowledge not one worker in that Foundry who died of lung or gastro-intestinal cancer ever had a claim filed, let alone allowed, due to exposure to anything other than asbestos. Many of these ex-Foundry workers are still alive. Some are still working at GM. If you know any of them who have or have had lung or gastro-intestinal cancer I want to talk to them because the GM Foundry was filled with silica, including airborne silica, as well as a lesser amount of asbestos. GM must be made accountable to its Foundry workers who died or will die due to lung or gastro-intestinal cancer as a result of exposure to silica dust.