By Mark Schadenberg
INGERSOLL – Mike VanBoekel is
reporting some good news from the Unifor Local 88 office here.
Who is Mike VanBoekel?
He is the union plant chair at CAMI
Automotive and the auto manufacturer plans on hiring 120 more employees.
CAMI constructs cars for General Motors
– Chev Equinox and GMC Terrain (pictured below) – and employs more than 2,800. It
is one of the important steering wheels of the Oxford County economy,
so this news must be greeted as great news as the CAMI engine is currently in
full throttle.
Production began at CAMI way back in
1989, so the manufacturer is going strong after 25 years. It opened
as a co-production between GM and Suzuki, but for the past five years
has been solely GM.
To put things in perspective,
especially reading several previously posted stories online, CAMI has
over 1,100 cars roll off the assembly line each and every day. My
quick math, says that's about 300,000 each year. Wow !
In early 2013, it was announced that GM
of Canada was investing about $250 million into the Ingersoll plant,
so those dollars have translated into jobs.
“Anytime
you throw that kind of money into a plant it very much helps our job
stability in the long term,” said plant Unifor chair Mike VanBoekel (pictured) in the early spring of 2013. “The floor’s very excited,
very happy with the announcement.”
Recently, JD Power & Associates named CAMI as
the No 2 plant in North America using several variables, including
production.
CAMI – I understand - means Canadian
Automotive Manufacturing Incorporated.
It was back in 2009 that CAMI discontinued
building the Suzuki SUV cars (XL7). Back then in a 'pdf newsletter'
publicly posted on the internet, VanBoekel discussed the poor 2008
economy with employees.
“(The 2008 year) will go down as one
of the worst years that Local 88 and CAMI have ever seen. The loss of
an entire shift, numerous down weeks and extremely low sales volumes
leaves our workforce with more questions than answers. Our membership
has done their job, we continue to build very high quality vehicles,
out start-up after down weeks have gone smoothly and our pilot work
continues to be ahead of schedule for our next vehicle.”
LINKS:
Current:
March, 2013:
Looking Back to 2008-09:
Work in Oxford County? Consider living here too !
Mark
Schadenberg, Sales
Representative
Senior
Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal
LePage Triland Realty
757
Dundas St, Woodstock
www.wesellwoodstock.com
(519)
537-1553, cell or text
Email:
mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter:
markroyallepage
Facebook:
Mark Schadenberg, Royal LePage Triland
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