In today's Globe & Mail there is an article about the last shift on the GM truck line in Oshawa. Workers were sad as they put the finishing touches to the last vehicles to roll off the assembly line which had, for many, played such a significant role in their lives:
"The Stewarts gathered for a service that was nothing less than an industrial funeral: The last truck – a Chevy Silverado with every option – was set under a spotlight at the end of the assembly line as managers delivered eulogies to a lost way of life.
“They told us it wasn't our fault,” said Mr. Stewart, who has spent 31 years at GM. “We made the best trucks in the world, but we still couldn't compete.”
Mr. Stewart and his wife reflected on the middle-class lifestyle his work at GM had brought them: an education for their two children, a house with a backyard pool, and his-and-hers motorcycles. Mr. Stewart wore a black T-shirt silk-screened with an image of a GM pickup truck and a slogan: “Pride and Dignity – The Last Truck Rolls off the Line.”
“Everyone's hurting,” he said. “A bad day all round.”"
The G&M article has a photograph which is very sad to look at: boots and shoes worn by GM workers on their last shift hung on a fence outside the Oshawa truck assembly plant.
We know that the Harper government is dragging its feet in allowing the billions of dollars of stimulus funds to be injected into the economy. They want to milk the allocation of those stimulus funds for their own political gain, by having a Tory present at a public announcement of the funds being used, even if their inexcusable delay means that thousands of Canadians are hurt by not having new jobs created to replace those lost at places like the GM Oshawa plant.
We also know that the Tory government is mean-spirited when it comes to the employment insurance payments.
Here is an idea for everyone to consider (especially those workers who have lost their jobs in this recession).
Why not send your boots and shoes to your local Tory MP?
Or hang them on fences outside their local constituency office?
Or hang them on fences before Parliament?
Or pile them up before Parliament?
Give the Tory government the boot for their mean-spiritedness, and their slow response to injecting the stimulus funds into our economy.
