THUNDER BAY — Mayor Bill Mauro says he worries for the 300 workers who are about to start an extended layoff from their jobs at the Alstom rail car plant.
"It's incredibly impactful" for the community but especially for the employees and their families, he said. "You're not sure, of course, that a lot of them will still be here when the work comes back."
Staff learned about the layoffs Tuesday.
About three-quarters of the current workforce at the plant will remain off the payroll for four to 12 months.
They will be recalled when work begins on 60 new TTC streetcars and on the refurbishing of 94 GO Transit cars.
Mauro said "We could see this coming, given the orders that were ending...We're happy to have helped to solidify some new work for the plant, but there's that lag."
The mayor said there's frustration over the fact the next orders couldn't be approved sooner in order to avoid the need for layoffs.
For the past couple of years, he said, the city and other stakeholders "were advising the government to expedite this so that we didn't have to see this result."
Still, Mauro expressed optimism that Alstom will remain a significant employer in Thunder Bay, but said he hopes its future includes big-ticket items such as subway cars, not just refurbishing contracts.
"Clearly...the real value-added work...is the engineering and construction work," he said.
Thunder Bay layoffs debated at Queen's Park
In the Ontario legislature Wednesday, the NDP accused the government of failing to protect jobs in Thunder Bay,
The government suggested there will be more work in the pipeline in the years ahead.
Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath said the Alstom workers "shouldn't need to be worried about paying the bills and keeping food on the table," and accused Premier Doug Ford of making "bad decisions on transit and procurement."
Horwath and Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Judith Monteith-Farrell both said the province was too slow to sign new contracts with Alstom.
Ford, however, pointed to Ontario's $171 million investment in the GO Transit refurbishing project, the $180 million it's provided for the purchase of more TTC street cars, and to the planned expansion of Toronto's subway system.
Echoing the premier, Associate Transportation Minister Stan Cho said the announced investments kept the Thunder Bay plant from shutting down permanently, and that "this is the tip of the iceberg."
Cho said the province is making unprecedented investments in mass transit and that "we're going to make sure we keep those work orders flowing...Thunder Bay will be busy."
