[LINK] On the continuing decline of the Ontario automobile industry

[rfmcdonald]

And the Canadian automobile industry slips that much more.

The final vehicle rolled off the assembly line Thursday at the GM truck plant in Oshawa, marking the end of 44 years of production and the elimination of 2,600 jobs.

The closure is part of company-wide cuts, with General Motors Canada planning to reduce its workforce by more than half by 2014.

After 45 years with GM — the majority of that time at the truck plant — Bob Nesbitt is retiring Thursday, and hopes he doesn't see the end of General Motors.

He noted that the company and the Canadian Auto Workers are in negotiations on a labour deal that will include concessions that must match an earlier agreement between Chrysler and the union.

"The company's holding the gun to the CAW's head and they either match it or they're gone, Nesbitt said.

"It's as simple as that."

There is some positive news for the company and its workers, as GM plans to launch three of six new products at its Oshawa car plant.

Various writers at The Globe and Mail go on about the very unfortunate long-term trends.

Some time this morning, Bob Nesbitt, 67, will drive a black GMC Sierra crew cab off the assembly line at the General Motors of Canada Ltd.'s Oshawa Truck Plant. The final pickup truck rolling out of the plant will mark not only the end of an era in the city where GM Canada was born, but also the end of GM's decades-long run as the largest auto manufacturer in the country.

The Oshawa plant's closing is a key factor in the drop of GM Canada's vehicle production, taking it to considerably less than 17- to 20-per-cent level of overall General Motors production in North America - the threshold that Ottawa and Ontario have insisted GM Canada must meet in return for loans of $6-billion (U.S.) or more.

The plant closing also means the elimination of 2,600 jobs, which when added to next year's shutdown of a transmission plant that employs 1,500 people in Windsor will push the company's head count well below 16,000.

"I've seen this before but that was always model change," said Mr. Nesbitt, who has worked at GM in Oshawa since 1964 and in the truck plant since 1971. "But that truck I take off [today], there won't be another one behind it." He has one of the plum jobs of the operation. For 20 years, he has been driving finished vehicles off the assembly line and to a holding area where they wait for delivery.

[. . .]

From 2004 through 2007, GM Canada cranked out more than 20 per cent of all the vehicles the auto maker produced in North America. In 2008, that fell to 17 per cent and is forecast to drop again this year to 14 per cent, says an analysis done by consulting firm AutomotiveCompass LLC.

"We see no way Canada can get to 20 per cent," said AutomotiveCompass president Bill Pochiluk. "We don't see them even reaching 15 per cent."

The forecast calls into question the federal and Ontario governments' commitment to lend GM Canada up to 20 per cent of the amount the U.S. government provides to its parent company. The most recent GM request is for about $30-billion in loans from Washington.

The federal and Ontario governments have argued since the restructuring talks first began that Canada must retain its share of GM's North American auto production in return for any loans. They have used the 20-per-cent threshold, saying Canada's share of the bailout would be proportional to GM's production here, and have little appetite for lending money that exceeds that level.