Ontario Caterpillar Plant Shut Down After Cuts

[CPCFTW]

Looks like MLW has another Occupy protester join its ranks. Welcome AusKanada! Where will be staging your next camp out with iPads?

[Guest Peeves]

I hope the former employees occupy the place in protest. They should lay claim to the assets as severance, let the company fold up, roll over and die. Give the corporation the tax breaks they want and say good riddance. Let the employees run the place and earn their pay and keep.

This can be turned into a blessing in disguise. Call it designed destiny, but when you act in the interests of other, karma applies!

I want some of what you're on.

[Guest Peeves]

A good background article by Andrew Coyne Article

Points to ponder from the article:

1 - EMD is not a Canadian company, and never was. Caterpillar bought it from a pair of American private equity firms in 2010; they bought it from General Motors in 2005, who bought it from its Ohio-based founders in 1930. Since 1935 it has been headquartered in La Grange, Illinois. The London branch plant was opened in 1950.

2 - Caterpillar didn’t buy the London plant. It bought the whole company, including its La Grange operations, which is where EMD does its design and engineering work, as well as making parts. Incidentally, as the economist Michael Moffatt points out, GM moved all final assembly work to London from La Grange shortly after the Free Trade Agreement went into effect. The jobs we’re worried about losing to the States are jobs we took from them.

3 - EMD never received any subsidies from the federal government; certainly not since Caterpillar bought it. The Harper visit to which Olive refers was to promote a tax break for the purchasers of locomotives, not the manufacturers. The visit occurred in 2008, two years before the Caterpillar purchase.

And to amend my past argument in regards to the Investment Canada Act: It’s not clear how the foreign investment laws could have been invoked to cover a purchase of an American company by another American company

Interesting points to ponder going forward.

Here is EMD's final offer to their employees: Link

Their wages were in four categories: $16.50/18.00/20.00/22.00 and skilled trades were at $34.00

So they were not ALL going to be reduced to $16/hour.

So published in the National Post today. Summed up, Cat apparently had just cause and while the union took it in the neck, they might have seen it coming.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Peeves

[Shady]

Right, completely devoid of any economic rationale, like your arguments whose origin, this Bush dogma actually created this great recession. Keep playing that tune buddy.

Who said anything about Bush?

I apologize,I worded it properly. They gleefully paid far less than their due to society

They're so-called due to society is completely subjective.

while reaping billions in profits.

They didn't make billions in Canada. Regardless, they paid taxes on their profits. Taxes according to the law.

A business doesn't "earn" money, they hire workers, the workers produce the product and they gain profit.

Yes, they earn a profit.

You're totally overlooking, like most rightists, the fact that business is a relationship. It shouldn't be run like a dictatorship simply because the CEO and Board of Directors legally can do so. That's not justifiable.

Yes, it's a relationship, and all relationships can have an end date. Of course a business can be run like a dictatorship. It's private property. It's not yours. You have no say in what goes on, other than whether or not you choose to purchase their goods or services. What you're suggesting isn't justifiable.

So the workers "priced themselves out" by not accepting a 50% pay cut??!!

Yes, they priced themselves out of the labour force, otherwise they'd have jobs as we speak. And no, the vast majority didn't have to take a 50% pay cut. But that's not the point. If their salaries are artficially high, for the type of work they're doing and the industry they're in, then yes, your job is going to be in jeopardy. You're not entitled to make 40 dollars an hour. Sorry, but that's reality. Especially in the current state of the economy.

I'd love for you to have your job sent to Vietnam unless your current wage was split in half, maybe then you could talk all about "non-ruthless" capitalism.

Nope, because I'm smart enough to understand the underlying reasons why jobs leave.

Typical garbage from Neo-Cons.

This has nothing to do with neo-cons.