2023-04-25 14:07:49
In an unexpected turn of events, the CSN union employees of the Alstom plant in La Pocatière maintained that the Quebec tramway will ultimately be built in Mexico and that the workers here will only have “crumbs”, that is only the assembly.
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This is what the CSN deplored Tuesday morning in a press release.
“The employees of the La Pocatière plant could never have imagined that the contract for the Quebec tramway, practically in our backyard, would escape us in favor of a Mexican plant. The situation is even more aberrant since the factory [de La Pocatière] is currently working to manufacture cars for the Toronto tramway,” lamented CSN President Caroline Senneville.
According to her, “this decision will have a major impact for the workers of the La Pocatière plant and for the maintenance of their expertise. It is nonsense”.
The CSN adds that “nothing prevents the government [du Québec] to oblige Alstom to manufacture a minimum percentage of the cars of the Quebec tramway project at the La Pocatière plant, or at least in Canada”.
Awaiting reaction
At the time of writing these lines, Tuesday mid-morning, the French multinational Alstom had not yet reacted to information from the union.
On April 14, Michelle Stein, spokesperson for Alstom, wrote that the Québec tramway will be “designed at our head office in St-Bruno-de-Montarville and assembled at our plant in La Pocatière, using our world-renowned engineering expertise and our unique industrial capabilities in Quebec”.
The City of Quebec and Alstom officially signed, yesterday Monday, the $1.3 billion contract for the construction and maintenance over 30 years of the tramway trains.
Two months ago, when Alstom was appointed as a privileged partner for the construction of the tramway trains, all the observers had understood that this construction would take place in La Pocatière and there was no question of manufacturing in Mexico at that time.
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