{"id":2967,"date":"2018-11-27T17:44:05","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T22:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/?p=2967"},"modified":"2018-11-27T17:47:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T22:47:32","slug":"stop-the-gm-closure-stop-nafta-2-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/stop-the-gm-closure-stop-nafta-2-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop the GM Closure! Stop NAFTA 2.0!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"General Motors announcement that it will close the Oshawa car plant is a declaration of war on Canadian autoworkers and on automobile manufacturing in Canada.\u00a0 The Big Three automakers will use the new NAFTA 2.0 agreement to shift their plants south to Mexico where wages are $4 an hour or less – a fraction of what workers in Canada are paid.\u00a0 This is what GM is doing with its Oshawa plant, despite the fact that this plant has won international awards for its quality and productivity repeatedly.<\/p>\n

This US transnational corporation is pulling up stakes because it can.\u00a0 Because the Canadian and Ontario governments won\u2019t lift a finger to stop it.\u00a0 Because GM\u2019s greed knows no bounds and it\u2019s quite willing to super-exploit workers in Mexico who will never be able to buy the cars they make, while abandoning workers in Canada who have created the enormous wealth and profits that GM has ferried out of Oshawa since 1918 and since 1953 in this particular plant.<\/p>\n

The Auto Pact protected auto jobs in Canada for over 35 years until the World Trade Organization struck it down in 2001.\u00a0 Capitalist globalization, aided and abetted by the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement was responsible for suddenly making auto plants and jobs completely mobile \u2013 transferable to whatever jurisdiction provided the lowest wages, the biggest incentives, and the lowest corporate taxes.\u00a0 \u00a0And all with the blessing of federal and provincial governments.<\/p>\n

Now the USMCA \u2013 or NAFTA 2.0 \u2013 is an open door to tip all auto manufacturing out of Canada, just as NAFTA cleared auto production out of Quebec a generation ago.<\/p>\n

Today it\u2019s GM destroying the livelihoods and lives of 2,800 autoworkers and their families in Oshawa.\u00a0 Tomorrow it might be St. Catharines or Ingersoll.\u00a0 Or it could be Ford or Chrysler closing up in Windsor, or Oakville, or Brampton.\u00a0 \u00a0Or parts plants in Southern Ontario.\u00a0 There\u2019s no limit to what these greedy corporations will do if they\u2019re not stopped in their tracks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to stop the clock on these transnational corporations.\u00a0\u00a0 The federal government must be forced by the united action of labour and its social, political and community allies, to stop the closure of the Oshawa plant, and stop this race to the bottom facilitated by corporate migrations to the low-waged, non-union, continental south.\u00a0 Militant workplace actions combined with mass, united independent political action led by Unifor, its sister unions in the CLC, and its community allies can turn the tables on GM and force them back.<\/p>\n

The Communist Party demands federal and provincial governments intervene to stop the closure now, or failing that, to nationalize GM\u2019s operations in Canada, transform it into a crown corporation under public ownership and democratic control.\u00a0\u00a0 A publicly owned corporation could produce a Canadian car that\u2019s environmentally sustainable and affordable, as part of a public transportation policy that meets the needs of the Canadian public and provides good, value-added manufacturing jobs for workers.<\/p>\n

The massive concessions forced on autoworkers in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown, combined with massive tax breaks from the federal and provincial governments, mean nationalization of GM\u2019s Canadian operations should be without any corporate compensation.<\/p>\n

Further we call on the government and Parliament to renounce the USMCA agreement and refuse to ratify the deal that will cause more closures and more misery for workers in Canada, the US and Mexico.<\/p>\n

We also call for plant closure legislation with teeth that will force corporations to show just cause before public tribunals with the power to stop closures, and jail corporate executives.<\/p>\n

The Communist Party stands with Unifor Local 222 workers who downed tools and walked off the job in the first protests against GM\u2019s closure announcement. \u00a0\u00a0The fight for GM workers is the fight for all workers in the auto sector, including auto parts and assembly, and for all those thousands of workers in spin-off jobs whose livelihoods depend on auto plants and production in Canada.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fight for sovereignty and independence that the federal government must take up or step aside to make room for a new government that will act to protect workers\u2019 jobs, manufacturing, and the public interest in Canada.<\/p>\n

GM\u2019s greed and thirst for more and more profits at the expense of Canadian autoworkers and the Canadian economy demands decisive action from the federal and provincial governments to stop this corporation in its tracks.<\/p>\n

Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

General Motors announcement that it will close the Oshawa car plant is a declaration of war on Canadian autoworkers and on automobile manufacturing in Canada.\u00a0 The Big Three automakers will use the new NAFTA 2.0 agreement to shift their plants south to Mexico where wages are $4 an hour or less – a fraction of…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,167,175,154,111],"tags":[176],"class_list":["post-2967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labour","category-manufacturing-jobs","category-nafta-2","category-ontario","category-trade-agreements","tag-nafta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2967"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2970,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2967\/revisions\/2970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communist-party.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}