GREG KEENAN -Globe and Mail auto industry reporter
HAMILTON -- Hot sales of the Chevrolet Impala have given at least a temporary reprieve to about 900 workers at a General Motors of Canada Ltd. plant in Oshawa, Ont.
The third shift will stay in place as long as demand for the mid-sized sedan remains high, GM Canada president Michael Grimaldi said yesterday.
"Within our current product plans we have not identified an end date for the third shift," Mr. Grimaldi told reporters after a speech to the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association in Hamilton. "Market demand has been very strong for that product."
General Motors Corp. said in November when it announced job cuts and plant closings throughout North America that the third shift at Oshawa car plant No. 1 would be eliminated during the second half of 2006.
"They have told us it was not going to happen this year," Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove said yesterday.
CAW officials interpreted the original announcement as meaning that the workers would be laid off this summer.
But a redesign of the Impala has helped generate strong sales, even though GM has deliberately cut back on deliveries of the car to rental companies in the United States and Canada.
Impala outsold the Chrysler 300 sedan and Dodge Magnum station wagon combined in April, GM officials said.
Developing popular vehicles is one of the keys to GM's turnaround, Mr. Grimaldi told the audience of parts makers yesterday. GM has also raised billions of dollars in cash, signed a new health care agreement in the United States with the United Auto Workers union and cut the size of its salaried work force.
GM Canada has also reduced the size of its salaried work force this year by attrition and a special separation program, Mr. Grimaldi said.
The auto maker's salaried work force in Canada has fallen by about 30 per cent since 2000 to about 3,000 people, he said.
"Every element of cost is being examined," he said.
The GM Canada chief also urged the federal government to tread cautiously in free-trade talks with South Korea.
"I don't want one government to open up their market and the other government to close their market and say we have a free-trade agreement," he said.
But he praised Trade Minister David Emerson for bringing together auto industry officials from both Canada and the United States to examine the concerns the industry has with a potential deal.
Among the worries are that Canada will be unable to force South Korea to eliminate non-tariff barriers, including the perception among South Koreans that they will face a tax audit from their government if they buy a car built outside the country.
Industry executives from other auto makers including those from DaimlerChrysler Canada Inc. have urged Ottawa to take the auto industry's views into consideration during the talks.
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