ALEC's Plan to Kill Union Jobs Everywhere -- Even Outside the U.S.

By Dave Saldana

February 15, 2013  |  It’s an anniversary London, Ontario, did not celebrate. It’s been a year, and the shock has yet to wear off in the Canadian city just an hour’s drive east of Detroit. All that remains is the hardship [3] of carrying on through mass joblessness, and its hand-in-hand partners, surges in poverty, mental health crises and addiction.

It’s a story many American communities will recognize -- but this one involves an American company wooed with a sweetheart deal by the Canadian government for a factory the Americans likely never intended to keep. What they really wanted, it seems, is to bust the union.

The lockout began on New Year’s Day, 2012, when Caterpillar Inc., a U.S. company, left 465 union workers on the pavement. At the Electro-Motive Diesel factory, they made engines and parts for diesel locomotives; Caterpillar subsidiary Progress Rail Services bought up the company in 2010.