Just two weeks after leader Buzz Hargrove’s whirlwind negotiations produced the peace of an early contract with the Detroit-based big three automakers operating in Canada, it appears the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) may have to go to war, a local paper said on Wednesday.

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According to the Globe and Mail in Toronto, Hargrove yesterday vowed to prevent General Motors from closing its truck plant in Oshawa, Ontario, as it reduced North American operations to adjust to a collapse in sales of pickups and sport utility vehicles spurred by high fuel prices.


“We are not going to allow this to happen,” he told the paper. “We have power and we’re going to use every bit of it.”


Oshawa is one of four North American GM truck and SUV factories that will cease production next year, the automaker announced on Tuesday, ahead of its annual general meeting. Two are in the US and one in Mexico.


The report noted that sales of some pickup and SUV models plunged by as much as 69% last month, while sales of compact cars soared.

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The Globe and Mail said that, only in mid-May, when the Canadian Auto Workers reached new contract agreements with the ‘Detroit Three’, GM committed to producing the next generation of its trucks in Oshawa beginning in 2011 or 2012.


Hargrove told the paper the US market could not possibly have declined so sharply in such a short period of time that GM would have to break that agreement, thus eliminating 2,600 direct jobs and thousands more at companies that supply the Canadian factory.


But the paper noted that not only will he be fighting GM, he will also be battling the relentless surge in the price of oil and petrol, which has driven a stake through the heart of the SUV market, along with Detroit’s profits and its vehicle sales in the United States.