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“The bottom line is it’s our work,” he said Wednesday. “Anything short of them bringing back that work will be a complete misjustice.”
But Nemak, in an emailed statement from spokesperson Lucy Wildman, said, “We are confident in the original conclusions of Mr. Jesin and are optimistic that he would come to the same conclusion.”
She noted that the court agreed that Nemak should not be required to continue operating an uneconomical plant.
The case began in 2015 when Nemak, an automotive parts manufacturer, concluded that the work for its existing contracts would end by 2019. Then an opportunity arose to take over a contract that the company’s plant in Mexico had received. The contract, to supply aluminum engine blocks to General Motors, would provide work until 2023.
Nemak told Unifor that the Windsor plant’s financial position was precarious and that if the union wanted the work, it would have to agree to wage freezes for four years and accept other concessions, including the terms for overtime.
Unifor said it would agree to that if Nemak promised that the Windsor plant would be the sole source for the work. The company agreed.
But GM’s orders were significantly short of the projections, and production fell. Nemak projected a $12-million loss at the plant in 2019 and losses between $5 million and $9 million in 2020 and 2021. It announced it would move production to Mexico. The union filed a grievance for breach of the collective agreement.
