An upcoming shutdown at the Windsor Assembly Plant is going to hurt more than just the 6,000 workers at the minivan plant.
Fiat-Chrysler has announced a week of downtime sheduled for April has been bumped ahead and will now take place the week of February 11th.
Unifor Local 195 represents workers at a number of plants across Windsor-Essex which supply parts to the assembly plant.
John Toth says over 1,000 workers at a number of feeder plants are going to be feeling the pinch too.
"Once again, our members will be without a paycheque for a period of time and will have to rely on unemployment insurance, which pays considerably less," he says "It's a particularly bad time coming so close to after Christmas and so close to the previous shutdown. Many are struggling just to catch up as it is right now. So this is just going to put them further behind."
Local 195 represents about 5,000 workers across the region.
Toth says says some of the feeder plants will be completely idled during the shutdown.
"There's close to 1,200 people that are directly impacted by the shutdown," he says. "Particularly at plants like Syncreon that supplies only the Chrysler minivan plant here in Windsor. All of their workers will be furloughed as well at the same time. Those workers don't qualify for any type of supplementary unemployment benefits."
He says some workers are feeling very uneasy over this latest shutdown.
People are concerned and typically this happens without much advance notice. So people don't have a chance to prepare. People are concerned about the long-term as well. We're hopeful for the long-term. We're looking at the hope that another product is assigned there or that those Pacifica sales continue to increase so they can support the full membership that is working there now," says Toth.
When FCA Canada released its 2018 sales report, it showed that Pacifica posted a 3% sales drop in 2018 compared to 2017.
Production at the Windsor Assembly Plant will resume the week of February 18.