On Monday, November 26, 2018, General Motors announced that it will be closing five plants in North America in 2019, four in the USA and one in Canada. In addition to the closures, 6000 hourly workers and 8000 salaried employees will lose their jobs. “The actions we are taking today continue our transformation to be highly agile, resilient and profitable, while giving us the flexibility to invest in the future,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra. “We recognize the need to stay in front of changing market conditions and customer preferences to position our company for long-term success.”

The press release goes on to say that “GM has recently invested in newer, highly efficient vehicle architectures, especially in trucks, crossovers and SUVs. GM now intends to prioritize future vehicle investments in its next-generation battery-electric architectures. As the current vehicle portfolio is optimized, it is expected that more than 75 percent of GM’s global sales volume will come from five vehicle architectures by early next decade.”

Thirty-five years ago, I began my career in the trucking industry by working for a company that derived fifty percent of its revenues from the automotive industry. My company worked directly with these plants. I have had the opportunity to visit the GM Oshawa facility on multiple occasions. While there are only 2300 hourly workers that are employed there now, this is an iconic facility in the province of Ontario and in Canada as a whole. This plant has been a symbol to Canadians, for a century, of the importance of the automobile manufacturing and assembly industry.