Chrysler layoffs no quick fix
By Terry Miller November can sometimes be the cruelest month of the year. It is the season of oncoming winter with cold rains and sleet and morning and evening darkness. For Chrysler workers, November is also the season of layoffs. On Nov. 1, Chrysler laid off 1,100 workers at the Bramalea site.

The layoffs, Chrysler said, were part of a 12,000 work force reduction across North America. They came as a surprise to some of the workers, but in the boom and bust auto manufacturing business, layoffs are all too frequent and have become part of the manufacturing sector in Ontario.

The federal government approaches the Chrysler layoffs with an almost cavalier high level approach reminiscent of the mindset of Conservative governments over the past 50 years. The Harper government believes that governments should not intervene in market forces because sector markets will correct themselves. If manufacturing is weak, restructuring will take place and the winner will emerge and the losers will fade away. The trouble, with that approach, is that thousands of Canadians lose higher paying jobs and Canada's manufacturing competence moves somewhere else in the world. Those, who are unemployed, have the unenviable choice to move to other places in Canada to take on other industrial jobs or take service jobs that pay less.

Most Ontarians cannot fathom the apparent disinterest of the federal government about the fate of the manufacturing sector in Ontario or the Ontario worker. Jim Flaherty, the federal Finance Minister, underscores this political philosophy of the hands-off theory of government in his comment to the press about the Chrysler layoffs, "There is market weakness in the auto sector and the government can't correct that."

To be fair, Chrysler is not going under just yet, and is part of an aid package from the federal and provincial governments to the tune of $76.8 million out of a $1 billion auto fund established in 2004 to aid the Canadian auto industry. While that looks after the company, what happens to the workers that are laid off?

Auto workers are in a boom and bust business. When things are good auto plants hustle to keep up with demand. When demand is down or the model doesn't sell, auto corporations lay off their workers. That is the history of the boom and bust cycle which percolates the industry and indeed you can see the boom and bust cycle in large cities like Oshawa, Oakville, Windsor and now Brampton.

CAW boss Buzz Hargrove says, "for every high paying job in the auto industry 12 other people are working." In Brampton there are many auto parts suppliers around the Chrysler plant who will be impacted by these layoffs one way or another.

The big question is 'what makes these latest layoffs more disturbing than the usual cycle?' These layoffs are different because there doesn't appear to be a unified strategy provincially and federally to save manufacturing jobs in Ontario. While the provincial government bends backwards to encourage and locate new plants in Ontario, there doesn't appear to be a hands-on strategy to ensure that innovations in manufacturing make the grade in Ontario.

The federal government has a no hands-on strategy to support the manufacturing industry in Ontario. Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters cite unfair international trade rules and the soaring Canadian dollar for problems in the manufacturing sector. They want the federal government to come up with a short-term strategic investment plan to deal with these realities and restore manufacturing to a competitive balance.

Local governments should support manufacturing's interests in looking for a federal-provincial strategy to enhance the manufacturing sector in Ontario and this region. Instead, up to now, there appears to be a lack of interest on the part of the Region of Peel and the City of Brampton regarding the loss of 1,100 jobs in Brampton and the lack of a provincial and federal manufacturing hands-on strategy.