BREAKING: General Motors to re-tool closed Oshawa GM factory to produce one million masks a month
Photo Credit: (Durham Radio News/Google Images)
Written by: Aidan Jonah
This afternoon, Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry announced that the federal government had signed a letter of intent with GM, to retool their closed Oshawa assembly plant for mask production. A portion of the previously closed factory will be used to make a million masks a moth for health care workers.
“To help Canada meet the urgent need for face masks for health care professionals and for other Canadians, GM Canada is preparing portions of the Oshawa plant to produce face masks based on the GM production model already working in Michigan,” the company said in a statement.
This comes after weeks of pressure from Green Jobs Oshawa, a coalition of workers, community leaders, environmentalists, labour and social justice advocates with the goal of placing the Oshawa GM plant under public ownership so it can be re-purposed for socially beneficial manufacturing. The company controversially ended vehicle manufacturing in Oshawa, cutting thousands of unionized jobs in December 2019. On April 9, they launched a petition which urged both the federal and provincial government to use the closed GM plant to ramp up production of PPE for front-line workers.
The petition demanded an “immediate order for the production of essential medical equipment and supplies in the Oshawa GM complex and related supplier facilities.”
After the COVID-19 pandemic has been defeated, the coalition wants the site be used in the future as a government-owned manufacturer of “medical and other products for the future, including what we will need for transitioning to sustainable energy.”
The government also announced partnerships with multiple companies to increase the medical capacity to fight COVID-19. To provide medical gowns for frontline workers, they’ve partnered with Mustang, George Courey, Roudel and Yoga Jeans. They are also working with more than a dozen companies, including Windsor Mold and Ink Smith, to deliver millions of face shields.
More details are to come.