此为《多伦多星报》10月6日头版头条，当日报纸标题已经改为“我们是否该迁往中国”(Are we going to have to move to China?)–Jack
Campaign quiet on lost jobs
Surging job stats are cold comfort to auto sector, and to a family facing unemployment yet again
Oct 06, 2007 04:30 AM
Linda Diebel
Staff Reporter
WHITBY–”What does this mean? Patrick McAuliffe, 12, asked his parents with a look of horror when he learned recently more layoffs were coming in the Oshawa auto industry where his parents work. “Are we going to have to move to China now?
An understandable question. He’s a smart kid; he’d done a school project on global job flow and talked to his parents Trish and Jim about the massive shift of good, well-paying manufacturing jobs from Ontario to low-wage countries.
Patrick had reason to worry. Both Trish and Jim work at car plant #1 for General Motors of Canada in nearby Oshawa. Patrick and his brother Brendan, 13, were uprooted from friends, relatives, school and their beloved Riverside Rangers hockey team three years ago when, facing layoffs there, his parents left Windsor to take another GM job in an industry that seemed to be imploding around them.
Sure enough, two weeks ago, Trish and Jim both received “termination of employment” letters.”Regrettably, this is to notify you . . . current market conditions . . . adjustments to our work force . . .” Their last day will be was to be Dec. 31 but a second letter advanced it to Nov. 26.
Their jobs collapsed after GM announced it was shutting down the third shift at its truck plant in Oshawa just before Labour Day, with a loss of 1,200 jobs. Jockeying according to seniority affected workers at the company’s two car plants in Oshawa – themselves due to be amalgamated in 2008, with an estimated total job loss in GM’s operations expected to shake out at just over 4,000.
Final numbers aren’t clear. What is clear is the auto industry is so disembowelled, even almost a quarter-century of service won’t protect your job.
The news has filled the McAuliffes with uncertainty and leaves no doubt about the issue they consider most important in the provincial election campaign: vanishing jobs and the erosion of Ontario’s traditional manufacturing base.
“This is the final resting place for us. There’s no place else to go,” says Trish, 46, at their roomy, two-storey home in Whitby. Jim, 41, nods.
They find no consolation in Friday’s news that, overall, Canada’s jobless rate fell below 6 per cent last month, a 33-year-low, or that Ontario saw a surge in September of 30,000 new jobs, some of them attributed by Statistics Canada to political hiring for the election.
Instead, their story is mirrored in the relentless hammering at Ontario’s traditional manufacturing base – with its integral auto sector. This year alone saw 44,000 jobs lost in manufacturing in the province.
Sid Ryan, NDP candidate in Oshawa and president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (on leave), estimates total loss of employment, including spinoff jobs, at 16,000 in the manufacturing sector in his Durham region.
The hiring is coming in the service sector, according to Statistics Canada’s report yesterday. Union officials who have fought for high wages refer to such positions as “McJobs” because positions in food or sales tend to be non-unionized, with poorer pay and benefits packages (if at all).
Trish and Jim are worried about being able to educate their sons, about finding other work, about their retirement and, after 24 and 22 years respectively with GM, about losing the full pensions with benefits they would have seen after 30 years.
They may be recalled temporarily and can buy time with Unemployment Insurance and, for a two-year period, a GM supplement that pays about $625 a week.
“But when you have based your life and your plans on having a certain income, it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under you,” says Trish. Furthermore, years of hard physical labour hoisting seats or carframes has taken its toll on their bodies.
There’s no question they make good money – $70,000 annually each.
Keith Osborne, vice-president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 222 in Oshawa, says people look at high-salaried auto workers and automatically think “they’re lazy or sitting back and not willing to work.”
Manufacturing base job losses haven’t been a big election issue. Trish believes it’s because people don’t sympathize with such high-wage earners and don’t see the demise of small-town Ontario that is occurring with each set of factory doors that swings shut.
“People in Toronto think they are safe but who’s next? ” Trish says. “There’s always going to be another China or Mexico.”
She voted Liberal last time in Ontario, while Jim voted NDP. This time, both will vote for NDP candidate Nigel Moses in their riding of Whitby-Oshawa.
He’s running against PC incumbent Christine Elliott and Laura Hammer for the Liberals. (In nearby Oshawa, Ryan is running against PC incumbent Jerry Ouellette and Faelyne Templer from the Liberals).
The McAuliffes say the Dalton McGuinty government hasn’t done enough for their sector and don’t accept the view there is little provincial governments can do. They disagree with CAW president Buzz Hargrove, who yesterday praised the Liberal record in his industry during a Star interview.
CAW economist Jim Stanford argues the problems of the manufacturing sector start with issues handled to a greater extent at the federal level.
The sector has been hit by “the high dollar, the flood of imports, the shift of Canada’s economic centre of gravity back to resources (like the oil sands) from manufacturing, and trade agreements that fall within the federal jurisdiction.”
Standford cites McGuinty’s opposition to the proposed Canada-Korea free trade deal – “an agreement that will make the import problem significantly worse.”
The McGuinty team argues it has “championed the auto sector” by offering $7 billion in new investment over its terms of office. It also promises to invest $30 billion in new infrastructure development.
In a section dealing with “jobs for today and tomorrow,” the Progressive Conservative platform says that manufacturing jobs are going offshore.
To deal with that, leader John Tory has proposed a wide-ranging series of ideas from a greater focus on higher education to partnerships with the auto sector to encourage skills development.
The best way to encourage jobs is to build a strong business base, according to the party’s philosophy, and Tory promises to remove barriers to investment by eliminating the “job killing capital tax.”
The NDP platform argues the province can do more to guarantee that grants to industry are tied more strictly to promises kept.
For example, if a company reneges on a job commitment, there would be repercussions, according to a party policy adviser, including demanding the money back “within a reasonable period of time.”
Meanwhile, she doesn’t know what the new year will bring for her family. Decisions have to be made. How soon will they have to sell their house? Will there be enough money for both boys to keep playing hockey for the Whitby Wildcats? How bad are things really going to get?
http://www.thestar.com/article/264254
安省今年损失4.4万个职位 制造业工人忧心忡忡
星报多伦多专讯/根据加拿大统计局昨日的最新报告，加国失业率上月降至6%以下，为33年来新低，安省9月也新增3万个职位，但安省倍受打击的制造业，特别是汽车业，却与上述情况完全相反。
随着经济全球化，许多高薪的制造业职位从安省移向劳动力低廉的低收入国家，如中国、南亚、拉丁美洲等地区，安省制造业今年损失4.4万个职位。制造业日益减少的职位和安省传统制造业基地的日益萎缩，已经成为制造业工人在本次省选中最为关注的问题。
汽车工人“无处可逃”
由于通用(GM)3年前关闭温莎车厂，麦柯利夫 (McAuliffe)一家当时不得不从温莎迁往奥沙华，以便在通用奥沙华附近的1号车厂工作。他们的孩子，12岁的派翠克(Patrick)和13岁的白兰登(Brendan)，也不得不离开一同长大的朋友、亲人、学校，甚至锺爱的冰球队。但两周前，他们再度收到了“雇佣终止信”，信中写到：“我们很遗憾地通知你……按照目前的市场条件……公司劳动力要作出调整……。”他们被裁员的最后日期是12月31日，公司在11月26日还将寄出第二封信。派翠克听闻此消息后不仅惊恐地问父母：“我们是不是要搬到中国去住了？”
通用在劳工日前一天宣布，将关闭其卡车厂的第3条生产线，意味着裁员1,200人，麦柯利夫夫妇正是受此举影响。工作机会将按照年资重新分配，影响范围涉及公司两个房车厂，而这两个房车厂也将在2008年合并，总体来说，通用奥沙华分部将裁减4,000个职位。一名工人表示：“这是我们最后的栖身之地。我们已无处可逃。”
不受省选议题重视
奥沙华新民主党候选人、加拿大公务员工会会长赖恩(Sid Ryan)预计，包括连带工作在内，安省杜咸区制造业共失去1.6万个职位。
根据统计局昨日的报告，工作的增长机会都在服务行业。但工会官员一直反对服务业的所谓“低廉工作”(McJobs)，认为这些职位没有工会、工资低且没有福利。麦柯利夫夫妇每人的年薪高达7万，女主人认为，正因为制造业薪水高，所以制造业工人失业不受同情，也不在省选议题中受重视。奥沙华的加拿大汽车工人222地区工会副会长奥斯本恩(Keith Osbourne)说，人们认为高薪的汽车工人“懒惰，只愿意坐着不干事”。
麦柯利夫夫妇已分别为通用效力24年和22年，尚未达到获得全额退休金和福利的30年工龄。他们现在颇有受挫感，开始担心孩子的教育、未来的工作，以及家庭的财政状况。他们上次选举一人投给了自由党，一人投了新民主党。这次他们对现任自由党政府失望，也不信任保守党，准备投票给新民主党。新民主党曾表示，如果省府仅守承诺，应该可以投更多资金给制造业。
