Picketers stationed outside an entrance to the GMC CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont. are photographed on Sept 18 2017. The Chevrolet Equinox is assembled at the south western Ontario plant.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Unifor officials and senior General Motors Co. executives held what a union leader called a productive two-hour meeting Thursday in Detroit in an attempt to end an 11-day-old strike at the auto maker's Cami Automotive assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont.
The union expects a reply from GM by late Friday on a proposal that includes job security language for about 2,500 workers who assemble the Chevrolet Equinox crossover vehicle at the plant, said Mike van Boekel, unit chair of Unifor Local 88, which represents the workers.
"The meeting was pretty constructive," Mr. van Boekel said.
If GM accepts the proposal, it's possible a tentative agreement can be reached in two to three days, he said.
The union's key demand is job security after the company cut 600 jobs at the plant this summer when production of the GMC Terrain, the Equinox's twin, was shifted to Mexico. About 425 people are on layoff after 175 took early retirement packages.
The Equinox is also made at two GM plants in Mexico, leaving workers wondering whether their jobs will disappear as well, even though the Ingersoll plant has been operating on three shifts a day, six days a week for almost a decade.
The vehicle is one of the hottest sellers in the GM lineup in Canada and the United States. Crossover sales have remained buoyant in both countries amid a decline in sales of passenger cars and a decline in overall vehicle sales in the United States.