Important: Caterpillar lock out in London Ontario

[blake 3:17]

This is a huge issue for the North American labour movement. It's pretty naked class warfare with the government ideologically commited to supporting the employers.

If others are following this please post. There are different solidarity actions, petitions, etc going on. Caterpillar and the federal government have picked this fight. A creative broadbased fightback is necessary.



Electro-Motive Canada locked out 420 workers on Jan. 1 after making a take-it-or-leave-it offer that the union says included a 55 per cent wage cut and other concessions.

Electro-Motive is owned by heavy equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) through its Progress Rail subsidiary.

"This is a dispute between a private company and the union and we don't comment on the actions of private companies," Harper spokesman Carl Vallee responded Wednesday in an email.

The prime minister showed no such reticence on Mar. 19, 2008 when he visited the Electro-Motive plant to showcase a $5 million federal tax break for buyers of the diesel locomotive-maker's wares and a wider $1 billion tax break on industrial capital investment.

"The prime minister's (2008) announcement related to the government's tax policies for all companies," Vallee said in the email. "A low tax environment is the best way to ensure job creators come to Canada and stay in Canada, as proven by the nearly 600,000 jobs created in Canada since July 2009."

A spokeswoman for Labour Minister Lisa Raitt repeated the same talking points in an emailed response.

When it was pointed out that Raitt aggressively intervened when privately-owned Air Canada was at war with its unionized workers last year, Ashley Kelahear responded that the Electro-Motive dispute "is in fact a matter of provincial jurisdiction." source: http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20120104/electro-motive-lockout-120104/20120104/?hub=WinnipegHome

Approximately 500 employees of a subsidiary of Caterpillar & members of the Canadian Auto Workers have been locked out after the employer demanded a 55% cut in wages amongst other concessions. The local had voted 97% in favour of striking. This has all happened in the past couple of weeks while people are distracted by the holidays.

The Ontario Federation of Labour is trying to build solidarity efforts but the terrain is unclear.
"We all see this as a key dispute that's going to in many ways dictate what happens to average Canadian workers across this country in the future," said Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, who travelled to London to back the pickets.

"It's a very important dispute for us, many issues are at play," Ryan said.

Ryan said the OFL was offering support, but he said there was no "full strategy" because the union and the OFL were not yet sure how the company would proceed in the days ahead. Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/01/03/electro-motive-caw-contract.html


This is an overview from the reasonably progressive business editor at the Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1110094--olive-why-caterpillar-has-the-upper-hand-in-london-plant-lockout

[Klaatu]

"A low tax environment is the best way to ensure job creators come to Canada and stay in Canada, as proven by the nearly 600,000 jobs created in Canada since July 2009."Low taxes "prove" only one thing: that the owners will make far more profit.

Low taxes do not "create jobs." Consumer demand does. Low tax rate has nothing to do with creating jobs. It only creates profit.

[blake 3:17]

MONDAY, JANUARY 09, 2012
TORONTO STAR EDITORIAL: CATERPILLAR LOCKOUT SIGNALS A NASTY TURN IN LABOUR STRIFE
Canadians knew as they headed into 2012 that the job outlook was bleak, but the lockout of 465 workers at a diesel plant in London sets a grim new standard.

On New Year’s Eve, Electro-Motive, owned by the U.S. industrial giant Caterpillar, issued a final take-it-or-leave-it offer — a 50 per cent wage cut, no cost-of-living adjustment and a new co-payment for health insurance. The union said no. On New Year’s Day, it locked them out.

“I don’t recall it ever happening where a company in that situation came at workers to cut their wages in half,” said Mike Moffat, a professor of labour at the Ivey School of Business, part of the University of Western Ontario.

The company’s “bargaining” tactics weren’t the only thing that differentiated the first labour showdown of 2012 from past disputes.

The union representing the workers, the Canadian Auto Workers, was essentially powerless. “How do we find some space to negotiate?” asked president Ken Lewenza, predicting a long, drawn-out struggle.

Caterpillar, based in Illinois, didn’t bother to answer questions. It used a Toronto-based PR agency to give the company line.

The federal government, which approved the sale of the London company (then known as Progress Rail) to Caterpillar in 2010, washed its hands of the matter. A spokesman for Industry Minister Christian Paradis said the minister would not intervene because “these disputes are between a private company and a union.”

Ontario Labour Minister Linda Jeffrey’s office issued a pollyana-ish statement urging both sides to resume negotiations. “Bargaining in good faith behind closed doors is the best way to resolve these labour issues,” the ministry suggested unhelpfully. (Premier Dalton McGuinty at least said he was “very concerned” and urged both sides to moderate their tone.)

The workers braced for a long, difficult standoff. “It’s not just about the union,” said Paul Dona, a six-year Electro-Motive employee. “It’s about the whole country. Where the hell’s it stop?”

Many people — especially those living in the industrial heartland — are asking exactly that. Labour strife has taken on an ugly edge they’ve never seen before. No one seems able or willing to stand up to companies that unilaterally slash wages and benefits.

The statistics don’t yet reflect this bitter reality. The December unemployment rate, released on Friday, stood at a relatively moderate 7.5 per cent. But there are trouble signals in the numbers. Public sector hiring fell off dramatically. Full-time positions gave way to part-time work and self-employment. The youth unemployment rate was 14.1 per cent.

The only solace is that Canada, thanks to its oil wealth, is doing better than most other developed countries. But here in Ontario, where the manufacturing sector is being hollowed out and corporate giants are rewriting the rules of work, 2012 will be a year of painful adjustment.
cope343

© The Ontario Federation of Labour http://www.ofl.ca

[blake 3:17]

There is a day of action being planned for the 21st.

Electro-Motive Workers Day of Action on Saturday, January 21

January 9, 2012, 1:35 PM EST



Labour organizations from across Canada are pledging support for the nearly 500 CAW members in London, Ontario who have been locked out by Electro-Motive - a subsidiary of U.S. multinational Caterpillar.

The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and unions such as the United Steelworkers have spoken out in the media about the need to fight back against the massive 50 per cent wage cut and major pension and benefit concessions.

OFL leadership went to London, Ontario on January 3 and 9 to support CAW Local 27 members who are on the picket line outside the Electro-Motive Diesel locomotive plant.

The OFL has announced plans to join the CAW in mobilizing for a massive London Day of Action in support of the Electro-Motive workers on Saturday, January 21.

"These workers do not have to stand alone to stare down Caterpillar's ruthless anti-worker bulldozers," said OFL Secretary-Treasurer Nancy Hutchison. "We plan to mobilize thousands of workers to descend on this London plant to show the overwhelming support that Canadians have for decent paying domestic jobs."

CLC President Ken Georgetti wrote Prime Minister Stephen Harper on January 3 calling on the federal government to disclose the terms and commitments made by Caterpillar for government approval of their purchase of Electro-Motive in 2010.

The Canadian government must get much tougher on foreign multinationals that buy Canadian companies and fail to live up to their promises, Georgetti told Harper.

Georgetti demanded the Investment Canada Act be changed to allow for an open and transparent process when reviewing proposed foreign takeovers.

He highlighted that foreign multinationals have routinely broken promises made to Canadians and their governments under the Investment Canada Act, citing the recent examples of Vale, which purchased Inco, and Xstrata which bought Falconbridge.

US Steel Shut down its Southern Ontario operations in 2009 prompting the government to take it to court for violating terms of the government's approval of the purchase of Stelco. US Steel then locked out Stelco workers in Hamilton in 2010 with workers only returning to work after eleven months in October 2011.

"The CLC calls on your government to strengthen the Investment Canada Act through various measures, including lowering the threshold for public review, ensuring public hearings are held in affected communities, and requiring publication of the reasons for decisions and conditions to be met by foreign owners," said Georgetti.

[blake 3:17]

The Caterpillar company`s investor services email is [email protected]

Just in case you felt you had some questions to ask about your next major investment...

[blake 3:17]

Please pass on, forward, tweet, etc

In the next week there should be more out about the day of action and how people can get there. Many of the unions will be providing buses and other forms of transport.

The Ontario Federation of Labour should have some plans announced, but it`ll probably be up to locals and local or regional labour councils to really organize it. Check on OFL here: http://ofl.ca/index.php/about/index_in/C60/

The CLC language is protectionist -- it`s just good that it is actually doing something. I`m critical of it, but don`t want to debate it outside the movement.

http://www.caw.ca/en/10833.htm

Electro-Motive Workers Day of Action on Saturday, January 21

January 9, 2012, 1:35 PM EST



Labour organizations from across Canada are pledging support for the nearly 500 CAW members in London, Ontario who have been locked out by Electro-Motive - a subsidiary of U.S. multinational Caterpillar.

The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and unions such as the United Steelworkers have spoken out in the media about the need to fight back against the massive 50 per cent wage cut and major pension and benefit concessions.

OFL leadership went to London, Ontario on January 3 and 9 to support CAW Local 27 members who are on the picket line outside the Electro-Motive Diesel locomotive plant.

The OFL has announced plans to join the CAW in mobilizing for a massive London Day of Action in support of the Electro-Motive workers on Saturday, January 21.

"These workers do not have to stand alone to stare down Caterpillar's ruthless anti-worker bulldozers," said OFL Secretary-Treasurer Nancy Hutchison. "We plan to mobilize thousands of workers to descend on this London plant to show the overwhelming support that Canadians have for decent paying domestic jobs."

CLC President Ken Georgetti wrote Prime Minister Stephen Harper on January 3 calling on the federal government to disclose the terms and commitments made by Caterpillar for government approval of their purchase of Electro-Motive in 2010.

The Canadian government must get much tougher on foreign multinationals that buy Canadian companies and fail to live up to their promises, Georgetti told Harper.

Georgetti demanded the Investment Canada Act be changed to allow for an open and transparent process when reviewing proposed foreign takeovers.

He highlighted that foreign multinationals have routinely broken promises made to Canadians and their governments under the Investment Canada Act, citing the recent examples of Vale, which purchased Inco, and Xstrata which bought Falconbridge.

US Steel Shut down its Southern Ontario operations in 2009 prompting the government to take it to court for violating terms of the government's approval of the purchase of Stelco. US Steel then locked out Stelco workers in Hamilton in 2010 with workers only returning to work after eleven months in October 2011.

"The CLC calls on your government to strengthen the Investment Canada Act through various measures, including lowering the threshold for public review, ensuring public hearings are held in affected communities, and requiring publication of the reasons for decisions and conditions to be met by foreign owners," said Georgetti.

[blake 3:17]

Locked-out employees of Electro-Motive Diesel in London, Ont., fear the worst
January 28, 2012

Jennifer Wells


Electro-Motive Diesel employee Ralf Zapke and his wife, Lise, have put their Belmont, Ont., house up for sale because of uncertainty about the future. Ralf, 49, has cancer and is on sick leave. His wage was to be cut from $32.91 an hour to $18. He has been with EMD for 18 years.
LUCAS OLENIUK/TORONTO STAR
Early Wednesday morning, a mere 24 hours before Caterpillar Inc. knocked it out of the park with its record-breaking fourth quarter revenues and record-breaking fourth quarter profits and record-breaking annual revenues and record-breaking annual profits and anticipated record-breaking performance for 2012, Laurel MacDowell was driving her usual route to the University of Toronto’s Mississauga campus. MacDowell, a history professor with U of T’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, had tuned in to CBC Radio’s Metro Morning and caught the daily exchange between host Matt Galloway and the show’s business commentator, Michael Hlinka.

The conversation was focused, largely, on the lockout of 481 unionized workers at the Electro-Motive Diesel plant in London, Ont., and Caterpillar’s tabled offer to the workers, which would see a wage collapse of between 43 per cent and 50 per cent for the majority of employees.

Hlinka played the “free market” card — as in, the market will decide what constitutes a competitive wage — leading Galloway to interject that Caterpillar’s offer to workers meant a slashing of wages. In response, Hlinka said this: “Sure, but there are thousands of Canadians who would love to work at that wage. . . The fact is, they’re not worth more.

“This is not highly skilled work, not particularly difficult work. It doesn’t require a great amount of skill.”

“He was totally patronizing,” MacDowell says. “I was thinking as I was listening to him, you know, we’re so sensitive about gender and race and sexual orientation, but we’re very insensitive about class. Apparently it doesn’t matter that a company that’s got more power is essentially bullying these people.”

What MacDowell calls a hardening of attitudes toward the London workers includes a hardening of attitudes toward people like Ralf Zapke.

A week ago, Zapke could be found quietly standing among the boisterous throng of workers and supporters who had gathered at a London rally to protest against the owner with the ticker symbol CAT, an acronym that predictably leads to signage criticizing the big cat, the fat cat, and its bulldozing of Canadian jobs.

In 1993 Zapke signed on with EMD as a welder. He had put in 10 years at Stelco, saw the writing on the wall there, and jumped to another company before jumping to EMD when the opportunity arose. “It was perfect,” he says. “Right up my ally.”

Zapke is 49, soft-spoken, cancer-stricken — “shit happens” — and currently out on sick benefits. He’s more reflective than most, explaining the job of a welder, from beading and fillet welds to the multiple passes on joints required when you’re sticking two-inch-thick steel to inch and three-quarter steel.

As London mayor Joe Fontana likes to say, making a locomotive is not like making a pair of tweezers.

“You’ve got machinists, you’ve got electricians, you’ve got pipefitters,”says Jim Wrinn, editor of Trains magazine. “Putting a locomotive together is a million small pieces and components and they all have to come together and they all have to fit right and work in unison. It’s basically a rolling power plant that’s going down the tracks.”

After more than a decade of welding at EMD, Zapke was asked to apply for the position of overhead crane operator, which struck him as intimidating, being in a glass-floored cab, 40 feet in the air, especially given his fear of heights, not to mention the skill of maneuvering a 30-tonne engine onto a locomotive platform. But then again, the welding fumes were getting to him. “I had been sucking in smoke for the last 25 years of my life, so I decided it was a good time to make a change. I got over the height thing. I got very good at my job to the point where they made me a trainer, training the new recruits coming in on the crane crew.”

Zapke digs out his last regular pay stub before his cancer put him in the sick bay. “My regular pay rate is $32.91,” he says. The proposed wage rate would take him down to $18. “You can work for the Beer Store and make more money serving people. I know that for a fact.”

There are 258 Electro-Motive workers in the same boat as Zapke, facing a potential 50 per cent pay cut. That group, representing 53 per cent of the work force at the London plant, includes assemblers and machinists. Below that group, at the bottom of the pecking order, are the four workers in what could be classified as the least skilled jobs in the shop: cleaner, truck driver. Those four are looking at a 54-per-cent pay cut. Higher up the scale, the likes of fabrication machine operators and special machinists are being asked to take a 43- to 45-per-cent pay cut. Those least affected are the 33 workers — electricians, plumbers, tool and die makers — who would see their current average wage of $42 drop to $34.

Barring a situation in which a corporation is attempting to skirt economic collapse, Laurel MacDowell can find no historic comparison. “It’s like going back to a period before there were unions, when employers had all the power. . . Part of our social political fabric has been to develop a system of collective bargaining, a labour-relations system that is legally backed. If we don’t have that to protect people, we literally will go back to where people have no security, no vested interest in their job and will be exploited.”

After releasing its results Thursday, Caterpillar reached for a historic reference of its own. The company’s two top executives — chief executive officer Doug Oberhelman and chief financial officer Ed Rapp — joined investor relations director Mike DeWalt in an analysts’ walk-through of the 83-per-cent jump in annual profits to $4.9 billion on revenues of $60.1 billion, a target the company had not expected to reach just yet. To put that performance in perspective, DeWalt told analysts from J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, etc., Caterpillar was enjoying its most significant increase in sales “since Harry Truman was president.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1123043--locked-out-employees-of-electro-motive-diesel-in-london-ont-fear-the-worst

[blake 3:17]

Caterpillar is shutting down their operations in London. This is an outrage on many levels.

If you would like to leave comments for them their contact page is http://www.caterpillar.com/contact

The solidarity group on FB is https://www.facebook.com/pages/Solidarity-with-CAW-Local-27-members-at-Electro-Motive-Canada-Caterpillar/273759192682195

[blake 3:17]

Good article.


Cohn: Caterpillar case symbolizes what’s wrong with our corporate culture
February 13, 2012

Martin Regg Cohn


A sign was held in as protesters gathered for a rally dubbed a "London Day of Action Against Corportate Greed" in London, Ont., last month. Caterpillar has decided to close its Canadian plant in the city.
DAVE CHIDLEY/THE CANADIAN PRESS
A 60-year-old London locomotive factory is now a footnote to history — squashed by the giant Caterpillar that sucked the life out of a plant. A fabulously profitable multinational buys it from private equity partners, then demands take-aways from the highly skilled workers: halve your wages or lose your jobs.

An open and shut case that everyone understands — or thinks they do. Consider the finger-wagging from pundits for whom the pathos at the plant was another chance to descend from the hills after battle to shoot the wounded.

In a high-minded polemic a day after the shutdown, one columnist harangued them for not cutting their wages, then hectored the workers for supposedly threatening violence during the dispute (which never came to pass, despite corporate bullying and bad-faith bargaining that surely violated the spirit of our labour laws.)

The workers conducted themselves with dignity throughout the lockout. They can hold their heads high for not stooping to the tactics of a company that refused to negotiate in good faith while playing jurisdictions off against each other.

Why stop at halving your wages from $34 to $16.50 an hour? Why not aim for the minimum wage and allow Caterpillar to reset Canadian pay scales? Why not seek parity with Chinese or Brazilian workers? The answer: our comparative advantage isn’t cheap wages, it’s knowledge.

In a follow-up column, that same writer assailed the Star (and me) for daring to suggest that Canada learn lessons from foreign Caterpillars that clean out our industrial heartland: Why invoke the issue of intellectual property, since it was an obviously ossified branch plant, with nary a patent within its Canadian confines, he argued — a mere assembly operation, staffed by overpaid, know-nothing workers, with all the brains back at head office in the U.S.

Caterpillar is the canary in the coal mine.

Not because the London locomotive plant necessarily held registered patents. It was a repository of intellectual property as economists now define it: savoir-faire, know-how, process innovation, incremental tradecraft, trade secrets. When you relocate a 60-year-old plant, it’s not only workers who lose their jobs, but a country that loses their collective expertise.

That’s not so much economic nationalism as it is national interest. We need to worry about the collateral damage.

Would Japan’s government sit idly if Toyota sold off its main Lexus plant to Caterpillar, to be replaced by an offshore facility? No, the Japanese would stand up if decades of subsidized know-how and tradecraft were spirited away.

So if Lexus matters, why not locomotives? We don’t always hold the patents, but we hold the knowledge.

Canadians consistently undervalue themselves — and the role of intellectual property, broadly defined. When Nortel went bankrupt, its executives had no inkling its patents would fetch $4.5 billion — after a century of subsidies from taxpayers. (The London locomotive plant also profited from taxpayer largesse — $5 million from Ottawa that lowered the purchase price for end users.)

If RIM ever goes on sale, shall we tell ourselves that we don’t need a national strategy to inculcate and preserve intellectual property? Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper has signalled he won’t let RIM slip through our hands. Certainly not after learning, on his trip to China, about how that country hoards intellectual property — notably by setting up branch plants for all those clever American companies that are now being outmuscled after years of incremental innovation on the factory floor.

Among the many responses to my last column on Caterpillar, I heard from a London professor, Peter Rogan, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Genome Bioinformatics at Western. He founded a startup and holds 11 patents, but told me it’s hard to attract investment here. The Caterpillar case struck a chord because it symbolizes what’s wrong with our corporate culture.

Canadian business continues to undervalue our startups, while others ignore the value of our so-called branch plants. They are selling our country short.

Martin Regg Cohn’s provincial affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. [email protected], twitter.com/reggcohn.

[blake 3:17]

From today's Guardian:


Caterpillar feels force of Canada's anger as it closes country's last train plant
Shutdown of EMD locomotive factory in Ontario reopens furious debate over fragile nature of foreign investment
Sian Griffiths
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 15 February 2012 16.39 GMT
larger | smaller
Article history

Workers picketing a Caterpillar digger dealership in London, Ontario last month in the bitter dispute over the city's Caterpillar-owned EMD locomotive plant, which has now closed. Photograph: Dave Chidley/AP
Even as temperatures dipped to -10C and blizzards swept in from the Arctic, workers at Caterpillar's locomotive factory in London, Ontario, remained doggedly on their picket line, locked in a bitter dispute sparked by the US company's demand that they should take a 50% wage cut or lose their jobs.

But their defiance of the harsh Canadian winter and the company's management has been to no avail. Earlier this month the company abruptly shut the doors on the Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) plant and sacked 665 workers in an attempt to guillotine a dispute that has introduced the brutal realities of globalisation to enraged Canadians, and led to calls for a nationwide boycott of Caterpillar products.

The dispute, which has been fuelled by the possibility of the jobs being transferred to a non-unionised plant across the border in Indiana, has also been hotly debated in parliament, where a motion – ultimately defeated – was tabled on Thursday condemning Caterpillar and calling for a rethink on foreign companies investing in Canada.

Two years ago, shortly before Caterpillar bought EMD from its American private equity owners, Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper visited the plant to highlight the benefits of Canada's low corporate tax culture and to trumpet his administration's attempts to attract foreign investment. Last month, a 15,000-strong rally in support of the workers cheered as London's mayor, Joe Fontana, demanded that Harper get his "ass down here" once again to intervene in the dispute.

Acting Liberal opposition leader Bob Rae has raised the spectre of a "race to the bottom" by companies seeking greater wage concessions from Canadian employees. In January, a paper mill in Quebec was shut by its US owner, White Birch, after its 600 unionised workers refused to accept a 20% pay cut.

But none of this will save the jobs at the plant in London, where workers are now engaged in a battle to secure the best possible severance terms and have vowed to occupy the plant, two hours south-west of Toronto, until they get their due. They are determined that none of the millions of dollars in unfinished locomotives leave for Indiana or anywhere else before a deal is reached.

EMD was bought just 18 months ago by a subsidiary of Caterpillar, which made record profits of nearly US$5bn in 2011, an 80% increase on its 2010 results. But on new year's day this year, the union workers at the plant were told that they would have to take a pay cut from an average C$35 (£22) an hour to C$16.50 an hour, as well as take substantial reductions in benefits. They rejected the offer and ended up losing their jobs.

Locked-out workers, like 36-year-old Luke Lewis, a locomotive tester, did shifts picketing outside EMD's gates throughout January's harsh winter. He told the Guardian he first learned he was out of a job on Facebook, and only received official notice of his termination in a letter five days later.

Ken Lewenza, leader of the union at the plant, the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), called Caterpillar "unethical, immoral and disrespectful" as supporters unleashed a barrage of angry posts on Caterpillar's Facebook page. "You Cat people … strip countries… We don't want you or your products in Canada … We are the largest country in the world … We have oil … I don't even know why we sell it to you …No more being polite to you any more … Stay out of our country," said one.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/15/caterpillar-canada-anger-emd-rail-factory

[blake 3:17]

From In These Times:

THURSDAY FEB 9, 2012 2:12 PM
Caterpillar Lays Off Locked-Out Canadian Workers, Moves Jobs to Low-Wage Indiana
BY MIKE ELK

A union campaign poster for a January 21 action against Caterpillar—when workers were locked-out, not laid-off. (Image courtesy Canadian Auto Workers union)

Ontario's loss is new 'right-to-work' state's gain—but Hoosiers won't make as much as northern neighbors

After locking out 465 members of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 27 in London, Ontario, Caterpillar decided last Friday to close its 62-year-old locomotive facility there and move production to newly “right-to-work” Indiana, where American workers will work for half of what Canadian workers would make. Caterpillar's decision to close the plant after workers refused to agree to major wage concessions has provoked outrage across Canada in light of the fact that Illinois-based Caterpillar made a record $4.8 billion in profits in 2011.

CAW members, who have already been blockading a completed locomotive from leaving the London plant, have vowed to continue blocking any products from leaving there as they attempt to extract a better severance from the company. The CAW local is also considering occupying the plant. “The CAW has occupied workplaces when employers have shown disrespect,” Canadian Auto Workers Union President Ken Lewenza told Bloomberg. “It’s a tool. It’s an option.”

As I reported last week, under the Investment Canada Act, foreign companies taking over Canadian companies must demonstrate a "net benefit" to Canada. Critics claim that the government allowed a foreign-owned company (Caterpillar) to buy a Canadian company without having any intention of providing any “net benefit” to Canada.

“The big bad Americans saw past our myopia—beyond the cash value of the plant’s physical property—to size up and seize the company’s intellectual property: the innovation, trade secrets, manufacturing processes and R&D residing in London,” wrote op-ed columnist Martin Egg Cohn in the Toronto Star. “It won’t just relocate the heavy equipment on the factory floor, but harvest the technological know-how subsidized with government incentives and writeoffs. This wasn’t bullying, it was highway robbery — with our politicians watching from the sidelines.”

Some union leaders in Canada are calling upon the Canadian government to take drastic action to prevent Caterpillar from leaving.

“This decision is a slap in the face to Canada, which gave [Caterpillar subsidiary] Electro-Motive tax breaks to protect jobs. It's an act of corporate aggression against Canada and we should retaliate with an immediate tariff against Caterpillar products imported to Canada,” says Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), whose union is in the process of merging with the Canadian Auto Workers. “The Ontario and federal governments should take the same action in this situation as former Premier Danny Williams did at AbitiBowater in Newfoundland—they should seize the Caterpillar assets in London and ensure that all community and worker obligations are fully met.”

Caterpillar did not return request for comment. But the company did announce it would hold a job fair at a locomotive facility in Muncie, Ind., where it advertised starting wages of around $12-$18.50 an hour—half of what workers in Ontario were making. Production that had been in London is being moved to Muncie.

Earlier in the year, Caterpillar placed an ad saying it was looking for a manager at the plant with "experience providing union-free culture and union avoidance."

Follow Mike Elk on Twitter: @MikeElk

[kevster03]

I've been following this story from the Workers Independent News Service podcast... it's pretty disgusting and sad :(