Friday, January 6, 2012

Locked out EMD workers facing Hobson's choice


The short story is that the Electro-Motive Diesel plant that has made locomotives in London, Ontario since 1950 has locked out its workers. The CAW, Local 27, members were asked to accept a 50 percent cut in wages, have their benefits chopped and sit by while their pension plan got gutted.

The workers are now out on the street 24 hours a day in shifts. So far the company has not tried to get replacement workers, at least ones who would be there to build locomotives, across the line.

I blogged the whole story with my guess as to its outcome here. [But, I so hope that I am wrong and that the workers win this one. A cut of 50 percent in salary is impossibly large, especially when you consider that Caterpillar, the ultimate owner, is making a bundle even in today's economy.]

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