Employees of the GM CAMI assembly factory stand on the picket line in Ingersoll, Ont., on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017. The 2,500 members of Unifor local 88 walked out Sunday at 10:59 p.m. when negotiators for the union and the automaker failed to come to terms on a new contract agreement. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave ChidleyThe Canadian Press
The ripple effects from the strike at the General Motors Co. assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont., are expected to spread by Monday to the auto maker's transmission-making factory in St. Catharines, Ont., and likely an engine plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., that makes the engines for Chevrolet Equinox models.
Between 300 and 400 Unifor members in St. Catharines make transmissions for Cami Automotive Inc., Tim McKinnon, unit chair of Unifor Local 199 in that city, said on Wednesday.
Suppliers such as Magna International Inc. are also affected. Magna's Qualtech plant in London, Ont., supplies the seats for the Equinox, but 300 employees are being told to stay home while the strike is on.
Two of Magna's Cosma International Inc. metal-stamping plants in nearby St. Thomas, Ont., have also stopped shipping parts to Cami.
The strike began late Sunday when Unifor and GM negotiators could not agree on job-security language in a new contract, specifically that Cami be designated as the lead plant for the next redesign of the Equinox. As the lead plant, it would be the first to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment when the vehicle is redesigned in the mid-2020s.
No official negotiations are scheduled.
General Motors of Canada Co. did not respond to an e-mail request for comment.
The union sought strong job-security language after production of the GMC Terrain crossover, the Equinox's twin, was shifted to Mexico earlier this summer. The Equinox is also assembled in Ramos Arizpe and San Luis Potosi in Mexico, but Cami is the largest producer of the vehicle.
"We are very nervous about the long-term at Cami," Unifor president Jerry Dias said Wednesday.
The two Mexican plants are expected to produce about 150,000 Equinox models this year, compared with about 250,000 at Cami, whose numbers will be down from a peak in 2014 in part because of the shift of the Terrain. That production shift eliminated 600 jobs at Cami. About 200 people took buyout packages and about 400 are on layoff.
The Terrain move also led to the end of about 120 jobs in St. Catharines. Those were taken care of by attrition and not layoffs, Mr. McKinnon said.
Shifting production of Equinox out of the Ramos Arizpe plant and back to Ingersoll, could provide a "win-win" settlement for both the company and the union, Joe McCabe, president of industry consulting firm AutoForecast Solutions LLC, said Wednesday.
The Ramos Arizpe plant is scheduled to begin assembling the new Chevrolet Blazer crossover late next year, Mr. McCabe said.
GM could shift Equinox production from Ramos Arizpe back to Ingersoll and fill the Mexican plant with the new Blazer, he said.
"At AutoForecast Solutions we have always believed Ingersoll should be the core Equinox facility," he said.
San Luis Potosi is scheduled to assemble 60,000 Equinox models, but it could be the spillover plant whose production would fluctuate as demand changes, he said.
The Equinox was redesigned for the 2017 model year and production of the new model began earlier this year, so Cami is relatively safe until 2025 or so when the vehicle would typically undergo another major change.
The newer model is smaller than the previous version, in part so that it doesn't compete with the Blazer, which is a little larger and slots in between the Equinox and the largest Chevrolet crossover, the Traverse.
"Everyone's building an SUV and CUV in every shape and size and colour and trying to fill every little gap," Mr. McCabe said.