TORONTO - Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid is confirming the Caterpillar owner locomotive plant in London Ontario will relocate south of the border. Electro-motive locked out its 450 employees New Year’s day after demanding that workers take a 50 per cent cut in pay and a roll back in pensions and benefits.
“The company is responsible to its shareholders,” Duguid told reporters, adding that he had only learned of the planned relocation 10 minutes before a planned press conference on jobless numbers showing Ontario’s unemployment rate had inched up .4 per cent in January.
That is a far cry from the rebuke delivered by Premier Dalton McGuinty earlier this week, who complained the owners of Electro-motive had failed to live up to the expectations of Ontarians. The Premier never mentioned Caterpillar by name. Labour ministry officials had been in contact with the company trying to get both sides back to the table, but it now appears those jobs will be lost as Caterpillar moves Canada’s only locomotive engine manufacturer to the United States.
NDP MPP Cheri Di Novo says it’s Premier who hasn’t lived up to the expectations of the people of the province. In 2008 Electro-motive was used by Prime Minister Harper to tout the benefits of corporate tax cuts. Di Novo says this is a case of where a company has “literally taken the money and run.”
Duguid says the governments thoughts are with the workers.
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