Protesting workers ended a two-week blockade around the General Motors Canada headquarters on Monday, allowing 900 salaried employees to go back to their offices.
Members of the Canadian Auto Workers union disbanded from the Oshawa, Ont. property by 7 a.m. to comply with a legal injunction issued on Friday by Justice David Salmers of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
His order allowed for 20 people at a time to continue to protest, but the union decided to vacate the property altogether. Many took part in a rolling protest in their vehicles that wound its way through Oshawa on Monday morning.
Keith Osborne, the chairman of the CAW Local 222, said union members made sure the property was clean of any garbage before they left.
"We cleaned up last night," he said. "We had people picking up cigarette butts. The place will look like we've never been there."
Nonetheless, union officials say they are far from quitting their fight to keep the Oshawa plant open.
Workers have been protesting GM's decision to cut the plant since June 4 when the company announced high fuel costs are forcing them to cut productivity on their pick-up trucks and SUVs. They said the Oshawa plant would close by 2009, leaving 2,600 people without jobs.
The union argued GM made the decision to close the plant just two weeks after it had ratified an agreement with the CAW ensuring job security for Oshawa workers. The union says GM breached the contract by pulling out of a promise to continue production at the plant through 2011.
"There are a number of different (protest) options we're going to explore," said Local 222 president Chris Buckley on Monday.
"I will sit down with GM any time, any place but at the end of the day, GM needs to understand that this fight is far from over," he continued. "We need a product in that facility."
Buckley wouldn't say what kind of action workers were planning.
"Stay tuned," he said.
GM union members say they must continue their fight or else workers at other auto makers will suffer the same consequences.
"The CEO of Ford (was) calling our leader here Buzz Hargrove, saying 'if you're going to let GM breach their contract we're going to do the same thing,'" one worker told CTV Toronto on Monday.
Union officials have talked about holding information pickets at GM facilities across Ontario and maybe even Detroit.
Osborne told The Canadian Press that he would meet with union lawyers late Monday to discuss bringing the dispute to the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
When GM announced the truck plant closure, the company cited slow sales. Statistics Canada figures released Monday confirmed that claim, saying new vehicle sales fell for a third straight month in April, mainly due to lower sales in Nova Scotia and the four western provinces.
With a report by CTV Toronto's Galit Solomon and files from The Canadian Press
