23 February 2009
Rail Service Scaled Back But No Local Jobs Affected
Alliston Ontario - Alliston's Honda of Canada Mfg. plants
scaling back on production is impacting Canadian Pacific Rail's local services, but officials for the railway company say the service
cuts aren't affecting local jobs.
"What we are doing right now is we have reduced the services that we have to Alliston and that's a function of matching capacity
to demand," said Canadian Pacific spokesperson Mike LoVecchio.
A report from the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) union Monday said CP Rail plans to layoff over 60 mechanical workers. LoVecchio said
information that Alliston jobs are being lost is incorrect. He said 37 employees are being laid off in Ontario, but none in Alliston.
He said scaling back the train services in Alliston is due to a lower demand from Honda, but local workers are being redeployed
throughout southern Ontario.
"They will operate within southern Ontario as needed or required," said LoVecchio.
In December, Honda announced it intended to cut production at the two plants by 37,000 units by the end of March, the company's fiscal
year end, by having non-production days. Earlier this year Honda also cancelled the afternoon shift at its Plant 2
facility and all Friday shifts at both plants, along with not renewing many of its contracts.
Since the production cutbacks started, LoVecchio said Canadian Pacific has been working with Honda to balance the demand for trains.
"Should production resume at previous levels we will ramp up again," said LoVecchio.
The Ontario CP Rail layoffs are affecting forces at CP Rail sites in Welland, Lampton, Oshawa, and Windsor facilities. With this
recent round of layoffs, CP Rail has cut 300 jobs across Canada.
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