The head of the union local representing 1,100 laid-off workers at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll, Ont. says his members will occupy the idled plant if General Motors tries to remove equipment.
“The ball’s in GM’s court. If they don’t remove equipment, we won’t seize the plant,” said Mike Van Boekel, chairman of Unifor Local 88 in an interview.
Van Boekel stressed that seizing the plant isn’t his preferred option, saying that the union local — along with Unifor’s national arm — have been working with the federal and provincial governments to convince GM to find another vehicle to produce in Ingersoll.
In a written statement, the company insisted it has no current plans to move equipment from the plant.
“GM has no intention at this time to remove manufacturing equipment,” the company said. “Our focus continues to be supporting our people and working with Unifor and governments to evaluate opportunities for CAMI.”
The future of the plant and its 1,144 workers has been up in the air since GM announced Oct. 21 that it was ending production of the BrightDrop electric delivery van.
The poor-selling BrightDrop was the sole vehicle being assembled in Ingersoll, which previously produced the Equinox SUV.
The plant has been idle since May, and was scheduled to resume production of the BrightDrop in November.
GM’s announcement about BrightDrop came just a week after Stellantis announced it was shifting production of the latest generation of its Jeep Compass to Illinois from Brampton, and two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump and his commerce secretary Howard Lutnick said they were gunning for Canada’s auto industry.
Many of his members blame Trump for their dilemma.
“He’s a big part of it,” said Van Boekel.
Van Boekel says there’s no doubt in his mind that existing machinery at the CAMI plant could be repurposed to produce other vehicles, even ones which aren’t necessarily electric.
“I’ll bet you 90 per cent of it could be used,” said Van Boekel. “I mean the robots are robots. They can just be reprogrammed and move other parts around.”
Still, said Van Boekel, he’s not expecting a new model to show up overnight.
“I don’t think it’s going to be quick, because obviously just to retool it would already be a year and a half to two years to do everything.”
