GM to Close Windsor Plant

There's yet another setback to Canada's auto manufacturing industry.

General Motors has announced that it will close its Windsor transmission plant, putting close 1400 people out of work in Windsor, and possible another few hundred in St Catherines.

Listen to Lori Paris' report

GM first told the Canadian Auto Workers Union about problems for the Windsor plant in 2005, and since then, despite efforts by the CAW to find new products for the plant to manufacture, GM will be closing the plant.

CAW president Buzz Hargrove says he's understandably upset at the news.

"I'm frustrated and angry.  I can't believe that we've allowed ourselves to get in this position, where our most successful industry... Canada was the number one assembler of vehicles and parts in the world. And we've now dropped, and we continue to drop and we continue to drop."

While the obvious immediate impact will be on the some 1400 employees of the plant, Hargrove says there will be a ripple effect.

"For every manufacturing job that goes out of this transmission plant, the economists will tell you that there are six or seven other jobs that related to this facility.  The other suppliers of parts to this facility...everybody from the restaurant owners, small business people to the price of people's homes. Everything is going to be impacted by this decision."

The plant closure will happen sometime mid 2010, and when that happens, it will be the first time since 1963 that no GM parts or vehicles will be manufactured in Windsor.