More Ontario auto plant closures may be on the way

DETROIT– Number three carmaker Ford Motor Co. will decide this week whether to shutter as many as four North American auto plants after consecutive quarterly losses.

In what looks to be yet another blow to the auto parts-dependant hauling sector in Southern Ontario, the company will propose which plants should be shut down at an upcoming Dec. 7 and Dec. 8 meeting, according to various business media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News.

Sources told media that the engine assembly plant in Windsor, Ont. is likely part of the list, along with facilities in St. Louis, Atlanta, St. Paul, Minn., and a truck assembly plant in Mexico.

Ford’s Windsor engine plant is reportedly one of
four company facilities that will close

The news comes a week after General Motors announced the closure of 12 plants by 2008, affecting 30,000 jobs, including nearly 4,000 in Oshawa, Ont.

Both Ford and GM say that they need to scrap unprofitable brands, as well as wages and benefits for union workers. The companies have also said high pension costs are weighing them down.

Union officials are instead blaming the closures and job cuts on “the one-way flood of imports” from Japan and Korea, that are “undercutting sales of Big Three” North American companies.

Ironically, it’s some of those Japanese companies that may be hiring in the near future. Toyota has announced it may build a second $463 million car assembly plant in Woodstock, Ont. by 2008. More recently, reports surfaced that the company’s medium duty-truck subsidiary, Hino Motors, may build a new facility somewhere in Ontario as well.

And this past October newspapers reported that strong North American demand might lead Honda to build a new southern Ontario facility to go along with its two Alliston, Ont. plants, which are expected to be at capacity for the foreseeable future.

GM’s U.S. sales fell 3.7 percent through the first 11 months of the year, and Ford’s dropped 4.3 percent. Among the biggest Asian automakers, sales rose 10 percent at Nissan Motor Co., 9.9 percent at Toyota, 8 percent at Hyundai Motor Co. and 5.8 percent at Honda Motor Co.

— with files from Bloomberg News