Caterpillar Machinery Company Lockout
Caterpillar, a construction heavy-machinery manufacturer in London, Ontario, has just recently locked out over 500 workers who were within the Canadian Auto Workers union. The recent lockout of these experienced industrial workers was because of Caterpillar’s idea to decrease wages from $35.00 to as low as $16.50 which is less than half. Caterpillar also decided to slash employee benefits by 55%. The Canadian Auto Workers union has demanded that this will not be accepted, but Caterpillar is basically leaving behind the veteran workers who were being paid $35.00 an hour and covering up for their absence with replacement workers who are happy to receive the $16.50 an hour. The sad part of the situation is that Caterpillar was not a company that was largely in debt or losing money, quite the opposite actually since Caterpillar was making fairly healthy profits before they slashed wages. Now they are currently enjoying their new all-time high profits and due to the over 50% cuts on employee wages and benefits. The company declared that the employees were on strike, and the workers union replied back by saying that no such strike was called and that the employees would be attending their regular shifts. Just after this incident the company announced a lockout. The ex-workers of Caterpillar are extremely upset and are picketing outside the factory doing their best to ensure that the factory will get shut down until fair wages and benefits are offered back to them. The Canadian Auto Workers union is desperately hoping to win this conflict seeing as how if it is lost, auto workers all over the country may receive the same wage cuts and it could cause a Canadian labour movement. Caterpillar has accused the union of being held responsible for the lockout since there are claims that the unions altering positions has caused the work setting