Cnn
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Stellantis has “interrupted production” in some of its Canadian and Mexican automotive assembly factories due to the newly announced prices – and, therefore, some American workers will also be temporarily dismissed.
Among those who will be dismissed, there are 900 American timetable employees who manufacture motorcycle groups and shoots that provide Canadian and Mexican factories affected, Stellantis announced on Thursday. Temporary layoffs are due to the reduction in production caused by prices.
The affected American employees work in five different factories of the Midwest: Warren and Sterling stamp factories in Michigan, as well as the Indiana transmission plant, the Kokomo transmission plant and the Kokomo molding plant, all in Kokomo, Indiana.
Most of these workers from the five American factories will not immediately lose a salary due to the terms of their union contract. But there would be a risk of loss of salary, even with union protections, if the closures in Mexican and Canadian factories extended.
The Stellantis assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario – which produces the Chrysler Pacifica and the Voyager as well as the Dodge Charger Daytona – will be closed for two weeks from Monday. This factory employs 4,500 hourly workers.
Also from Monday, the Stellantis assembly plant in Toluca, Mexico, which makes the Jeep compass and electric wagoner, will be closed for the rest of April. The Toluca factory has 2,400 hourly workers.
In a memo to North American employees of Stellantis, the director of the exploitation of Stellantis for the Americas, Antonio Filosa, said that the company “continues to assess the medium and long-term effects of these prices on our operations, but also decided to take immediate measures”.
“These are actions that we do not take lightly, but they are necessary given the current dynamics of the market,” he added. “We understand that the current environment creates uncertainty. Rest assured that we are very committed to all our main stakeholders, including the main government leaders, unions, suppliers and dealers in the United States, Canada and Mexico, while we are working to manage and adapt to these changes. ”
The president of the Unity of the Auto of the Auto of United, Sean Fain, attacked the cuts by Stellantis.
“Stellantis continues to play games with workers’ lives,” he said in a statement. “These layoffs are a completely unnecessary choice that the company does. It’s no longer the same thing, and everything that does not go with our broken trade system. Companies like Stellantis use workers as collateral damage to pay the price of poor management decisions, and it is unacceptable. ”
Despite the criticisms of President Trump, Fain and the Union have greatly approved his pricing policy in the conviction that automotive production will be returned to the American factories of Mexico and other countries. But such a change would take at least months or even years to accomplish.
Unifor, the Canadian Union that represents the country’s car workers, criticized Stelllantis’ decision.
“Unifor warned that American prices would harm car workers almost immediately and in this case the layoffs were announced even before the automatic rate has entered into force,” said Unifor president Lana Payne. “Trump is about to learn how interconnected the North American production system is hard, car workers paying the price of this lesson.”