Unifor opened a labor action center in Niagara Region this month to help about 1,000 members find work following layoffs and retooling delays at General Motors Canada's St. Catharines Propulsion Plant.
The automaker won't start producing electric motors at the site south of Toronto until 2027, a roughly 16-month delay to the original retooling timeline, the union said.
Nearly half the hourly workers at the plant, meantime, were laid off in the first half of the year, as two production programs reached their end-of-life. The last V6 engines and GF6 six-speed transmissions were built at the plant this spring, according to Unifor Local 199 President Jordan Lennox.
About 600 members are working at the plant today, Lennox added, down from 1,100 to start the year. A further 500 Unifor members in the plant's supply chain have also been laid off because of the changes.
The delay is "certainly not ideal," Lennox told Automotive News Canada, but with work on the plant under way, there's reason for optimism longterm.
"We've got to ... have a positive lens that this is going to transition properly and we're going to have an opportunity for a lot of those employees to come back to work."
GM Canada spokesperson Natalie Nankil said that production of electric drive units in St. Catharines will move to "early" 2027 from the fourth quarter of 2025. The adjustment will "support the company's global strategy to increase manufacturing capacity in line with ongoing growth in EV demand," she said in an email.
The delay made official this summer came about 18 months after the automaker announced plans to retool the St. Catharines Propulsion Plant to build 400,000 electric-drive units annually in February 2023. The unquantified investment was part of the company's plan to build one million EVs in North America by 2025 -- a goal GM has since backed away from.
After the loss of the V6 and GF6 programs this year, the plant builds V8 engines for pickups and SUVs on three shifts, as well as dual clutch transmissions for the Chevrolet Corvette on a single shift.
The Unifor action center opened Oct. 10 in St. Catharines. It will help laid-off workers with resumes, upskilling and provide mental health support.
Having a place to bring workers back together is another key element, Lennox said.
"You go from working in a factory Monday through Friday, there's a lot of camaraderie you build with people, and then suddenly you're on the street laid off and you're all by yourself."
After a week up and running, about 20 members had already used the St. Catharines center to find full or part-time work, Lennox said.
Based on seniority, workers at the plant are eligible for supplemental unemployment benefits of up to two years under Unifor's collective agreement with GM Canada. But Lennox said he expects all staff will need to find other work over the extended layoff. Members will retain their recall rights once the retooling wraps up.
The motor-production delay is the latest in a series of setbacks for major Canadian EV supply chain projects in 2024.
Among other adjustments, Ford Motor Co. twice overhauled production plans for its three-row EVs that were set to be built in Oakville. It pushed the program back two years in April, before abandoning the plan outright in July in favor of building Super Duty pickups at the plant.
Unifor opened another action center in Oakville earlier this year to help support members through the transition.
Given the outlook for the EV market, the GM and Ford moves weren't surprising, said Sam Fiorani, vice-president of global vehicle forecasting at U.S.-based AutoForecast Solutions.
"The market is growing, but it's just not growing fast enough to absorb all the new players."
Motor production in St. Catharines in 2027 puts GM at a "good place" for growth as EV adoption accelerates, Fiorani said. But even then, he added, the ramp up will be slow as automaker forecasts for EV uptake still look overly aggressive.
"It's not going to be as big as every player anticipates, especially GM."
As retooling work slowly gets under way at the St. Catharines plant and EV equipment accumulates "waiting to be bolted into the floor," Lennox said the union is continuing to press the automaker to speed up the retooling timeline, as well as look at adding alternative products.
"If GM was to come and ask me, 'What do you want?' We'll take engines, transmissions, hell, we'll build a car if you want us to."