It's the end of the line for the third shift at the Windsor Assembly Plant.
Fiat Chrysler announced it will return to a traditional two shift operation on June 29, which will eliminate 1,500 jobs. The elimination of the third shift was originally announced in March of 2019 and was set to end in September but there had been a number of extensions as FCA was reviewing the business case for maintaining the third shift on a month to month basis.
Unifor Local 444 President Dave Cassidy says it's a sad day for the entire city.
"That's 1,500 direct jobs potentially at Windsor Assembly Plant. The feeder plants that supply Windsor Assembly Plant, for every one of those jobs ... it's 10 spin-off jobs in the community," he says.
Officials say the decision comes as the automaker works to align volumes with demand while phasing out production of the Dodge Grand Caravan at the end of May.
Cassidy says FCA did put a lot of effort into avoiding Wednesday's decision.
"I think they did with the product. It's easy for me to sit back and be an arm-chair quarterback and say they could have done this, they could have done that, why didn't they do this or that,' says Cassidy. "Everybody knows they do a five year business case and they're behind [on sales] for this one."
Cassidy says until the Canada-US Mexico-Agreement is finalized, it's tough to pull products north of the border.
"Get everybody on board because we cannot continue to compete with places like Mexico, where workers make $2.25 per/hour, it can't happen," added Cassidy.
He says Unifor will keep pushing for a new product to get the third shift back to work.
"Windsor Assembly Plant is the best in the world. We've had that minivan around since 1983. We know the market is shrinking, but whatever product they bring there, we will make sure that we build it right," he added.
The company says it will make every effort to place indefinitely laid off hourly employees in open full-time positions as they become available based on seniority and will offer retirement packages to eligible employees.
Kendal Harris has worked at the plant for 24 years, but there are a lot of people on the line that don't have enough seniority to move to another shift.
"I'm concerned about the people that just started out and started families over the last few years. They went out and bought their first house," he says. "They come to work every day and do what they're supposed to be doing and sure enough now they're going to be out of a job."
Harris tells AM800 News the entire city needs to prepare for what comes next.
"It's going to affect a lot of people I personally know, not only our workers in the plant. It's going to be a huge ripple-effect through the local economy," says Harris. "People at the malls, people who have stores, anybody. You look at the money that's spent in the community from the auto-workers, the suppliers and everybody else."
Windsor Assembly Plant currently employs 6,000 workers and produces nearly 1,500 minivans a day when operating at full volume.
— with files from AM800's Gord Bacon, Rob Hindi and Kathie McMann.