Officials with Navistar International say they have no plans to bus in temporary workers the rest of this week to their plant in Chatham, Ontario, which has been practically shut down
since the first of June following a strike by members of the Canadian Auto Workers.
Company spokesman Roy Wiley said the plant is currently being staffed by managers and supervisors, who are building between six to eight trucks per day. That figure is much lower than the normal production rate. Wiley said the plant turned out only 22 trucks during the month of June.
He says the company is planning to go back to court on Thursday to seek an extension of an injunction prohibiting no more than 50 striking workers from picketing outside the plant.
An existing injunction did not keep hundreds of workers from demonstrating outside the plant, as well as at rally points where replacement workers met to be transported to the plant.
Each of the company’s attempts to bus in replacement workers failed, and there were reports of clashes between workers and security guards with a private firm hired by Navistar. In one of the incidents, six workers were hit by a van transporting replacement workers.
In the meantime, the Canadian Auto Workers union is threatening to call in thousands of workers from other nearby auto-related assembly facilities to add to the protestor numbers outside Navistar’s plant.
Workers at the plant are upset over International’s plans to implement a series of cost-cutting moves.