Rejection of Navistar offer leaves future of Chatham truck plant in doubt

By Hugh Mckenna, The Canadian Press

TORONTO - The future of the Navistar truck plant in Chatham, Ont., is in limbo following a rejection of the company's latest offer by members of the Canadian Auto Workers union.

The rejection came as the plant began a scheduled shutdown Wednesday putting several hundred workers - the union says about 350 - on paid vacation for two weeks.

They will join slightly more than 800 employees already on layoff once the vacation period expires, according to both the company and the union.

At this point neither side appears willing to budge and no talks are scheduled during the vacation period, CAW spokesman Bob Chernecki said in a telephone interview Thursday.

"We've agreed to keep in touch with the employer, but unless something radically happens," there will be no breakthrough, he said.

Navistar is demanding significant concessions on both economics and workplace rules, including "drastic" changes to scheduling.

"We've said all along there would not be a lockout, but we won't be producing trucks until we get a contract," Navistar spokesman Roy Wiley said in a telephone interview Thursday from company headquarters in Warrenville, Ill.

Craig Homes, plant manger at the plant says in a recorded message that the major hurdle is the need for the plant to become "smaller and radically different."

In announcing the workers' rejection of the latest company offer, CAW president Ken Lewenza said "we cannot expect our members to accept a contract that will eliminate their jobs and devastate their already hard-hit community."

"So far, what we've seen from Navistar only includes eliminating hundreds of jobs and moving production out of the country to the United States and Mexico," Lewenza said.

Chernecki said earlier this week that Navistar wants to cut production from "a couple of hundred trucks a day" to less than 35, which he says would mean massive layoffs.

In Thursday's interview, Chernecki said the company's demands "border on bad-faith bargaining."

"They know that we can never ratify what we have on the table today," he said.

Meanwhile, the CAW has called on the federal and provincial government's to step in, citing what he said was $65 million in public money that Navistar has received.

"They're a responsibility here in our view on the part of the federal and provincial governments to step in here and stop this insanity," he said.

Chernecki said the union has met in the last two weeks with federal Industry Minister Tony Clement and Sandra Pupatello, Ontario's minister for economic development and trade.

Chernecki said the union has no idea what conditions may have been attached to the government money and is still waiting for a response from Clement and Pupatello.