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| Space getting tight. Honda Canada has a fair bit of space on site to store new vehicles off the line, but if the CP Rail strike continues, the space could quickly fill up. |
ALLISTON - Honda of Canada Manufacturing (HCM) in Alliston was forced to cancel one of its production shifts on Saturday (May 26) in an effort to limit the amount of completed vehicles currently being stockpiled on site due to the ongoing CP Rail strike, which is now in its sixth day.
The overtime shift will be rescheduled to a future date once the strike has been resolved and normal outbound freight shipments resume, according to HCM spokesperson Lisa Timpf.
“We can confirm that we have adjusted some scheduled overtime to control our inventory levels,” Timpf said in an email reply. “This is production we will plan to make up at a later date, when the strike situation has been resolved. The driver for rescheduling the production overtime was to balance our storage of completed vehicles with our rate of production.”
She added the company hasn’t been forced to cutback on its weekday shifts and at this time has no further production adjustments to announce.
HCM relies on CP Rail for the majority of its outbound vehicle shipments. Rail shipments usually take place twice daily at the plant. A portion are also shipped by truck. Since the strike started last Wednesday (May 23), Timpf said the company has increased its truck shipments to help compensate. However, she said truck shipments alone wouldn’t be able to meet HCM’s output demands.
With no other shipping options available, HCM was forced to start storing its completed vehicles on site. Timpf said there is still room at the plants for more vehicles, but its unclear how long it will take for the company to reach capacity.
“We have several onsite locations that are still available,” Timpf said. “As well, although shipping by truck does not move the same volume of vehicles as shipping by rail, there are still vehicles leaving the plant.”
Last week, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt said the federal government would bring in back-to-work legislation if the union representing 4,800 workers was unable to reach a deal. The union represents locomotive engineers, conductors and other workers. As of today (Monday, May 28) talks between CP Rail and the union have broken off.
Rait estimated the strike could end up costing the country’s economy $540 million per week in lost activity.
Source;
http://www.simcoe.com/news/article/1362907--rail-strike-forces-honda-to-cancel-shift