Expansion, contraction in Scarborough manufacturing
Two stories illustrate contrast in opportunity
BY MIKE ADLER, January 31, 2008 06:33 PM
It's been a year now since workers at Collins and Aikman Corp. were told the Milner Avenue plant where most of them worked for decades was shutting down.
Months after it did, the gates are still padlocked. Many people had worked there since the early 1980s, when the economy was firing on all cylinders and Scarborough was booming with manufacturing jobs.
Most were women, immigrants with not much education for whom English was a second or third language. Collins and Aikman gave them jobs that, by last year, were paying $20 or even $30 an hour.
Those kind of jobs, once common in Scarborough, made it possible to buy a house and raise a family here, said Greg Burton, president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 303. "Now that that manufacturing base is gone, their skills are not transferable."
Of the 384 Collins and Aikman workers, 138 found full-time work, a dozen each are part-time or self-employed and 23 are retired, just letting employment insurance run out.
Very few found work in manufacturing. Jobs open to them paid $8 to $10 an hour, with no benefits.
"They're finding it really difficult to pay mortgages. Families have been destroyed here," Burton said this week at the Shorting Road office of the local, a framed but decades-old photo of CAW National President Buzz Hargrove on the wall behind him.
The office is now a CAW Action Centre, "a place to cushion the blow" where laid-off Collins and Aikman employees can get counselling, brush up on interview and computer skills and get their education assessed.
Most want to go back to school but, at an age averaging 45, can't consider spending several years there just for a job, said Burton. "Some of these folks don't have a lot of time to play with."
Other plants have closed too, but not all recent news from Scarborough's industrial parks is bad.
Local company Samco Machinery Ltd. has landed a surprising contract: it will supply equipment to an Indian firm making the world's most inexpensive car, the Tata Nano.
The City of Toronto report last November made the case that Scarborough is attractive for industrial and commercial investment, saying staff want to promote "the Scarborough Advantage" to real estate brokers and developers. The city has adopted a long-term strategy for protecting its employment lands and developing a financial incentives package aimed at sparking "next generation" growth, such as so-called green industries.
This week, Ward 37 (Scarborough Centre) Councillor Michael Thompson, a member of the city's economic development committee, said the area's chances for economic revival "are extremely good."
It's true the industrial marketplace has dramatically changed and firms have left for places with lower labour costs but Scarborough offers diversity, the space to grow one's business and people who can do the work, he said.
But Scarborough has to work on overall improvements, promoting its attractive neighbourhoods and quality of life because industries look for such things.
"We have to convince manufacturers that there are reasons to stay here," said Thompson. "Taxes in itself isn't a deciding factor."
Samco Machinery has managed to expand by becoming more of a global company, in the last decade more than doubling the size of its Nantucket Boulevard plant and its workforce to 125 employees, said Bob Repovs, its president.
It's easy to outsource the making of repetitive parts, but not so easy to find good solutions to problems, he said, adding Tata turned to Samco for roll-forming equipment and technology because no companies in India "can do what we're doing for Tata.
"We have to innovate, innovate, innovate. That is the key. And then sell those solutions to these companies," said Repovs, who noted Samco is short of fitters, welders and machinists and said schools should work harder to encourage entry to the skilled trades.
"There's always a need for them."
Repovs said governments could also be more accommodating for industry. Seeking to expand, Samco took a year to get a building permit, he said.
Burton, however, argued Canada's governments are failing to recognize a crisis in manufacturing and need to do a lot more to keep local jobs from migrating to China, India and elsewhere.
The union negotiated a closure agreement at Collins and Aikman Corp. whose employees made cup holders, air vents and other moulded plastic parts for cars. In March, Burton recalled, the company showed it intended to go back on its word. The union occupied the plant, which was still making products for the Big Three automakers. As a result, Burton said, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors paid the workers' $5.1 million severance.
The manufacturing crisis affects immigrants and workers of colour; all these communities need to speak with one voice, letting people know the loss of quality jobs affects everybody, he said.
If things don't change, Burton added, "eventually, Canada will become a service country where we're selling doughnuts and coffee to people. You cannot build a country on the basis of that."