There is an interesting column in today's Toronto Star by Martin Cohn
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1126357--cohn-how-canada-let-caterpillar-strip-a-plant-clean?bn=1http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1126357--cohn-how-canada-let-caterpillar-strip-a-plant-clean?bn=1
This didn't start with Caterpillar and certainly won't end there. Sunworthy Wallcoverings of Brampton, one of the very very few profitable wallpaper manufacturers was bought out by an American company. They took all the money out of it, stripped and gutted the facility, left it bankrupt....another manufacturing company lost in the abyss. Although there was no government money involved, many many local jobs were lost, employee pensions lost their value, etc..
I appreciate that the Sunworthy case is a bit different given the government dollars poured into the one (Caterpillar) and not the other but it's part of the overall picture of Canada's loss of manufacturing structure, making us more and more dependent on other countries, whose best interests don't include those of Canadians.
I honestly have little sympathy in this case. This was a battle to break the union and moving to a state that takes a more hard line against mandatory membership. Something to take note of. It's not the first time this has happened (it's happened where I work). I don't think it will be the last. CAW is too big for it's britches. The company owns the tooling. The major IP has always been in the US at their Illinois head office. This was a break the union move. The government needs to be more careful where it invests should be the lesson going forward.
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